THE 



REPOSE IN EGYPT 



A MEDLEY 



SUSAN E. WALLACE , 

AUTHOR OP U THK LAND OF THE PUEBLOS. 1 ' " THE STORIED SEA," 
* ' GINEVRA, 71 ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



TROY, N. Y. 

NIMS & KNIGHT 

1889 



Mil 



Copyright, 1888, 

BY 

SUSAN E k WALLACE, 



By Transfer 
Maritime Comm. 

SEP 3 



DEDICATION, 

TO 

The two dear friends with whom I learned that 
travel is the saddest of pleasures. 

S. E. W. 

Crawfordsville, Ind 
October, 1888. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



An Egyptian Woman Frontispiece 

Head of Menephthah, the " Pharaoh" of the Exodus.. 32 

On the Banks of the Nile 38 

Head of Barneses II 52 

" M Thothmes II 52 

The Asp. 60 

The Ibis 60 

Egyptian Standards 64 

Forms of Isis 64 

Egyptian Vases and Amphorae 68 

Egyptians Ploughing and Hoeing 76 

The Tomb-Chamber of the Third Pyramid 80 

The Sphinx of the Pyramids 96 

View of the Great and Second Pyramids 110 

Band of Six Musicians 168 

Egyptian Sy strum 168 

The Twin Colossi of Amenophis III 176 

Pharaoh "Necho" 178 

An Egyptian King destroying His Enemies 180 

Egyptian Columns 196 

Egyptian War Chariot 206 

Crown Prince of the Ottoman Empire 389 



THE REPOSE IN EGYPT. 



Chapter 




Page 


I. 


The Burden of Egypt, 


9 


II. 


Thp rjaTirlino' - 

JL XXV-' J-JCvi.J.vl-i.J~l££j, 


11 


TTT 




24 


IV. 


Crossing tlie Reel Sea, 


30 


y. 


Alexandria, - 


35 


VI. 


Obelisks, - 


45 


VII. 


OlpoTiatra - 


59 


VIII. 


To Cairo 


70 


IX. 


The Eise of the Nile 


78 


X. 


At Heliopolis, **• 


85 


XT 


Thp T^licrht iTitn "Flo-vnt 

Lilt/ JLllgllL 111 LU JLjgVUb, 




All. 


llie Ketiirn oi the Holy (Jarpet, 


lOu 


2L111. 


The Pilgrimage to Mecca, 


1 OA 


■VTT7 

XIV. 


Mecca, the Sacred City, 


128 


XV. 


Pilgrimage, - 


130 


XVI. 


The Repose, 


142 


XVII. 


Poetry and Music of the Arabs, 


157 


XVIII. 


The First Cinderella : A Tale of the 






Red Pyramid, 


175 


XIX. 


In the Isle of the Lily : The Story 






of the Three Kings, 


194 



CONTEXTS. 

Chapter Page 

XX. In the Isle of the Lily: Thalia's 

Story, - - - 212 
XXI. Still in the Isle of the Lily : The 

Antiquary's Story, - 223 

XXII. Conclusion, * - 252 



ALONG THE BOSPHORUS. 

I. The First Voyage, 1390 b.c, - 263 

II. The Second Voyage, a.d., 1884, 2S8 

III. One Woman : A True Romance, 314 

IV. In the Harem, - - 368 
V. Vedding Customs in the East, 377 

VI. At Yildiz Palace, - - 383 



PEE FACE. 



The papers here collected contain little to re 
ward the lover of useful knowledge, their pur- 
pose being to amuse rather than to instruct. Yet 
when truth is offered it is on high authority or 
the result of patient investigation, that no mis- 
take of mine may mislead the reader with whom 
I love to journey. None will find half the pleas- 
ure in hearing, that the writer has had in telling 
her tale. 

The Story of One Woman is easily identified. 
A life, somewhat idealized, too well-known to 
elude recognition, and familiar in the Orient as 
stories of Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Mary 
Montague were to a past generation. 

For permission to re-ap^ar in this shape, I 
must thank the father of the nameless magazine 
which died young (Peace to its ashes !), the re- 
spective editors of The Independent, Advance, 
Congregationalism Youth's Companion, Chris- 
tian Advocate, Bacheller Syndicate, Frank Les- 
lie's Magazine, and Sunday-School Times. 



THE REPOSE IN EGYPT. 

I. 

THE BURDEN OF EGYPT. 

I dib not think to write it, but petitions have 
come to me, mainly from readers who pine to 
sing and soar, and see ; whose unsatisfied wishes 
are strong and numerous, whose salaries are nar- 
row and narrowing. Give us something about 
the Nile they say. Tell how the Sphinx looks ; 
is the nose really knocked off? and how about 
the Pyramids, are they equal to their fame ? and 
were you disappointed in Karnak ? So I have 
a message to deliver ; which is the mission of 
the traveller from the times of Caleb the spy, to 
the days of Livingston the explorer. I cannot 
tell anything but what has been told a thousand 
times, and a thousand times better than I can 
tell it. For in the oldest literary composition 
we find allusion to the Pyramids. The name is 
thought to be the same with the Hebrew chara- 
both, rendered in our version, " desolate places." 
The first sheik of Arabia, the patient man of 
Uz, knew those wonderful sepulchres ; and their 
purpose iz exactly expressed in his words: 

M For now I should have lain still and been quiet, 
I should have slept ; then had I been at rest 
With kings and counselors of the earth 
Who built themselves pyramids." 

9 



io The Repose in Egypt. 

In the face of description at least four thou- 
sand years old, I dare not hope to offer new facts 
or fictions, yet, as the Oriental face changes not, 
but always holds a compelling interest for the 
stranger, so the scenes of its abiding are forever 
old, forever new, in spite of countless repetition ; 
attempt to describe the indescribable. 

I confess to pleasure in thinking there are 
readers who believe all has not been sung and 
said about the Pyramids. To behold those un- 
fabled mountains of stone, had been to me a 
desire and a despair from childhood to mature 
years, and when at last I did see them, with 
these eyes, looking exactly as they should look, 
I felt like Simeon of old in the Temple. 

You who have felt the fascination and mvs- 
tery of the shrouded land of Sais ; the inscruta- 
ble divinity over whose face was written, "I am 
that has been, which is, and which shall be, and 
no mortal hath lifted my veil," may turn this 
leaf. You who have read its story, till the » 
country of Mizriam is a twice told tale, need go 
no further. Not for you I sing. But for you, 
the young and the poor, the lustrous eyes beloved 
scanning a near horizon, the men and women of 
scant leisure, whose restless souls are filled with 
unsatisfied longings for the far-off, the dim, the 
unattainable, you are the reader claimed for these 
chapters. 



The Landing. 



II 



II. 

THE LANDING. 

After a voyage, smooth from Beirout, with- 
out incident or accident we landed at Port Said. 
Four travellers from the land made Holy by the 
blessed feet of the Man of Nazareth, the Son of 
God. 

We had knocked about so much that sharp 
American angles had been rounded; the acute 
had become obtuse. We had learned to accept 
our portion whatever it might be, asking, no 
question ; to manage salads drest with strange 
oils suggesting petroleum, cucumbers stuffed 
with abominations, cheese-cakes with pepper, and 
we gaily saluted a rosebud in the butter and 
accepted nutmeg in mashed potatoes, though no 
one pretended to admire the flavor. 

Better than this discipline, we had discovered 
that immediately means in an hour or so, pres- 
ently means next week, and to-morrow means 
never. When we missed a train, we did not rave 
or fume, but silently betook ourselves to sketch, 
scratch, and other books and calmly bided our 
time. Western activity is doomed to death, 
suffocated under the soft, slow feather-bed pres- 
sure of Oriental indolence, and we were in a fair 
way of conversion to kismet, and of incoming 
ills to say, " Allah wills it," and serenely accept 
destiny. 

Long travel had somewhat changed the party 



12 



The Repose in Egypt. 



whom I trust the dear reader has not forgotten, 
for we journeyed together across the Storied Sea. 
The two, of whom your correspondent is one, 
looked and felt older by a year than when we 
parted. Travel enriches memory and lavishes 
treasure for imagination, but it is a wearing 
pleasure, and we felt no time was to be lost till 
we set our faces in return toward the best land 
the sun shines on. 

The Antiquary's crow's feet were a deeper 
track. His eyebrows mealy, and hair weak and 
straggling, and he was more helpless than ever 
without the green goggles. Thalia, the widow, 
my pretty Thalia, was younger and prettier than 
lasf year ; this partly because she had laid aside 
mourning. I suspect the mourner had a struggle 
with herself over the point, and she broke it to 
me gently on this wise, one morning in our state- 
room, when she was trying to brush the dust out 
of her kilt pleats. 

"I think," she began, hesitating, and fiery 
red, "no dresses are so hard to keep clean as 
black." 

"True," I said, not raising my eyes from my 
paper, " you know brown is my favorite color." 

"Don't you think," embarrassed and doubtful, 
" I'd better try a plaid of some sort, or get out 
that old dark merino in the bottom of my trunk? " 
This from my domineering friend, who in mat- 
ters of taste ruled us without thought of disobe- 
dience ! What was going to happen ? 

I laid down my pen, first wiping it with slow 
deliberation, and looked straight into the girlish 



The Landing. 



13 



face so eager and timid, the little blue veins in 
her temples beating a swift pulse. Wistful, 
anxious, as though life and death were in the 
coming words, she appeared to regard my judg- 
ment about the expediency of the travelling dress 
as a decree or a sentence. I knew perfectly well 
what she wished to hear and, with determination 
to be agreeable said, boldly, "Slate color or gray 
are much better, they shake out without rusting." 

There was dead silence as she went on with 
the coat brush. She must have known what I 
suspected ; so I added, meaningly, " pardon, dear 
child, but it is time ; the day has come to make 
a change." 

She blushed, paled, trembled. "Yes, it is 
time," she said with sharp, unnatural voice; arid 
what did the dear girl do but drop the dress on 
the floor, and burst into a passion of tears. 

Now Thalia had never given me her con- 
fidence in words, and I did not feel free to ad- 
vise, where advice had not been asked, in a 
matter of deepest moment to her ; wherefore I 
thought best to slip away and let her cry it out 
alone. For in that implied confession, she 
snapped the last thread of the bond which had 
bound her to Willy Benson t her husband, lying 
two yearn in dreamless sleep by the blue lake at 
Chicago. 

Maybe she thought we had not noticed the 
criss-crossed letters, covered with post marks, 
which came with unvarying regularity, and were 
shyly read without comment, but with brighten- 
ing eyes and tell-tale cheeks. Maybe she 



*4 



The Repose hi Egypt, 



thought her fellow voyageurs insensible to the 
fact of her sitting up o' nights, not to jot down 
notes, nor to abandon herself to the fascinations 
of the guide-book. I would not wrong my 
Thalia by such suspicion of search for useless 
knowledge. Presumably the midnight oil was 
spent in answering those weighty documents. 
Maybe she did not know that a generation ago 
we too learned how to conjugate the first verb 
taught in the languages of the nations. 

There is deep meaning in the custom which 
makes the wedding blossom a bloomer at all 
times and seasons, perpetual emblem of happy 
marriage. Bud, flower, and fruit come on to- 
gether, and fast as one golden bough is stripped, 
another as bright and as shining appears. I had 
watched this second start ; a late, summer 
growth, about which she was bashful as a school- 
girl. At some unwonted beauty of sea or sky, 
she had ceased to whisper in cherished echo of 
early feeling, " How Willy would have enjoyed 
this." Latterly in dreamy- abstraction she wore 
the look which revealed her eyes were with her 
heart, and that was far away. Love is immor- 
tally young, in fact never anything but a boy, 
and blind at that. There was no good cause 
why the widow, but little past twenty-eight, 
should not gather up the broken threads of her 
life, and weave them again into a tissue of bright- 
ness. 

Thalia has an April day temperament, and 
the warm shower of tears went by, leaving no 
sign save in the freshened roses of her cheek, and 



The Landing. 



15 



a vivacious lighting of the entire face. After 
our greasy breakfast, she came on deck in the 
old drab merino. Thalia's dresses never scrape 
or rustle; they are the clinging kinds without 
starch, as becomes her still and modest presence ; 
in harmony with the voice, " ever soft, gentle, 
and low." The old merino was wrinkled by 
long packing, but borrowed grace from the 
girlish shape, and behold, in her straw hat an 
ostrich feather ! No cloudy apparition, as I at 
first thought, but a genuine waving plume, one 
of the tender grays, bought never so cheaply 
as that day at Port Said. Her abundant hair, 
still the golden age, was loosely knotted below 
it, low in her neck. I could hardly believe 
my eyes, but there it was, blown this way and 
that, by the warm land breeze ; dancing, flut- 
tering, the modest, yet unmistakable signal 
that the old wound had ceased its fevered 
throbbing and had healed, not without a scar. 
From a dried bouquet which lasted from Jaffa 
she had picked out a few carnations not en- 
tirely withered, and with a spray of evergreen 
made a bright houtonilre. So the period of 
mourning was ended, and it was plain as day- 
light we could not hope to keep our spoiled 
darling abroad much longer, or one more must 
be added to our party. 

Antiquary gazed at the nodding feather with 
undisguised admiration for the wearer. The old 
man made no secret of his worship of the most 
lovable woman in the world, with whom he had 
many rousing debates verging on the fascinating 



16 



The Repose in Egypt. 



edge of quarrel. They had great disparity of 
years and of tastes. The works, grand and 
dry, in which the bachelor revelled, she detested, 
and there was a pathetic appeal in his hopeless 
and constant obedience to her, when he knew 
her smiles were not for him ; and by bo magic 
juice on her eyelids could she admit him to the 
realm enchanted, where youth rules forever. 

Without words he wanted to show his ap- 
proval of Thalia's toilet, and toward evening 
came up from below with a sealed paper envelope, 
very delicate in tissue, peach-bloom in tint. He 
tore open one end of the package, and drew out 
and unrolled a large square kerchief of gold and 
brown silk, edged with brown and yellow knot- 
ted fringes and flossy tassels. " Will you weai 
this? " he asked, with quiet directness. 

"It is very pretty," said Thalia, evidently de- 
lighted with the sheen and texture of the showy 
garment, "but do you think it will be suitable 
for me ? " 

"Nothing can be more so. Pardon," he 
added, as in slow and painstaking movement, he 
lapped one corner bias on another, "but it will 
please me to see you in it ; in fact will keep me 
in good humor a whole day." 

Antiquary has the pale, slender hands we 
associate with our ideal scholar, and there was 
positive grace in the action, when he laid the 
folded scarf respectfully, even reverently, on the 
shoulders whose taper line the vile fashion of 
epaulettes had not deformed. She passed the 
ends through a large cornelian ring, bought of a 



The Landing. 



17 



Mecean trader, a trinket warranted to keep oft* 
the evil eye. 

" The hufiyeh is from Damascus," said the 
lover of antiquities. "It came by caravan, and 
by the changeless fashions of the Orient we may 
safely assume such a head-covering was worn by 
Job, foremost of Arab sheiks when he was first 
of all men of the East. The Arabians arrange 
it in several loose layers, pleats you call them, 
don't you ? " he asked, with a man's helplessness 
in matters of toilet. 

" Folds, you mean," said the smiling Thalia. 

" Yes, folds, close down to the eyes, and keep 
it in place by a silk or camel-hair rope round 
the head." 

" I remember that gallant Bedouin, the Sheik 
of the Jordan, flaunted such a thing when he 
escorted us from Jerusalem to Hebron, and think- 
ing how changed he looked when he took it off, 
under the oak of Mamre." 

"Eight," said Antiquary, gratified at the 
allusion, " and it is fitting that the first woman 
who has entered the Cave of Macpelah, should 
adopt a portion of the costume of the Abrahamic 
dispensation. I believe a garment like this 
shaded the neck of the Friend of Guests, as the 
Moslems name him, when he sat in his tent in 
the heat of the day and beckoned the wandering 
angels in." 

" I remember too, this lovely color, in some 
picture of the Magii." 

" Right again, you are improving, Mistress 
Thalia. In the celebrated Adoration at Ant- 
2 



1 8 The Repose in Egypt. 

werp, Melchion, the Arabian King, wears the 
hufiyeh to show his oriental origin. It becomes 
you" he continued, admiringly. " it gives tie 
sunny look I love. The colors vary and shift 
with the light, like tints in the plumage of 
certain feathered throats."' 

And the vivid changeable dyes did harmonize 
with the Yiolet eyes, and the clearness of a com- 
plexion whose ivory neither freckle nor tan 
could hurt. 

" Yes,"' he continued, encouraged by his suc- 
cessful compliment, " Thalia is one of the Muses, 
one of the Graces as well. "Now," — with his 
antiquated bow — k, I see all the Graces in one. 
Her namesake of old lived in the Parnassus, and 
drank of the Castilian Spring ; her statue in the 
Vatican wears ivy leaves and holds a shepherd's 
crook. She presides over comedy." 

"You are too kind/' said the radiant Thalia ; 
u this is really more than I deserve." And she 
had reason to be gratified over such speech from 
a dry old bookworm. 

u The hufiyeh is so graceful and pleasant," he 
went on, as if speaking to a large audience, " it 
must have been in general use and. not despised 
by princes, it may have bound the beautiful 
brows of Absalom. The pale light ones offered 
in the Bazars of Smyrna are counterfeits: only 
the brown and gold are the true ones. They are 
woven in the peerless city called by the ancients 
Chrysorhoa, or Stream of Gold, beloved by 
Naaman of old. From it come swords of secret 
power, and scimitars of matchless temper, These 



The Landing. 



19 



silky stuffs are worthy her prime before she fell 
into the hands of the fanatic legions of the Desert, 
hertreasures scattered till but two genuine blades 
of Dam as steel remain in that oldest of living 
cities. The Syrian from whom I bought the 
kerchief said, it throws the sun and the moon 
into shade, and so it does when worn by Her 
Grace Madame Thalia. It has taken six thou- 
sand years of aesthetic culture to produce the 
perfected ugliness of the Christian stove-pipe hat. 
The people we call heathen," he prosed along, 
warming with his own eloquence, "and barbarian, 
knew how to mix dyes and how to make them- 
selves comfortable. 77 

No one opposed or answered the scholar. 
Thalia was gazing with unseeing e} r es at the long 
low coast line, looking not at it at the past or 
the present, but into the future, opening brightly 
into Paradise Eegained. The undaunted speaker 
continued. "More than that, the knew how to 
write respectable compositions. When Job 
penned the Iliad of his woes, and the shepherd 
king sang the Lord is my shepherd, the latter 
day poets who insist Adam was a baby man, 
and evolution's the thing, may learn something 
of musical numbers, that is if vanity and ego- 
tism allow : 77 and the Antiquary gave a grunt, 
as is his wont when in disapproval. 

He was dying for a discussion, but for once we 
let the gentlest of grumblers have the disappoint- 
ment of his own way without opposition. Thalia 
demurely moved her seat, to watch the coming 



20 



The Repose in Egypt 



and going of passengers, and the old man follow- 
ing her with dim eyes, murmured : 

" On her glowing, languid visage 

Lay the magic of the Orient. 
And her garb recalled the splendor 

Of Scheherezade's legends." 

My feminine reader who has felt the depressing 
effect of long- worn crepe may recall the feeling 
with which it is laid aside. In the beginning, 
there is a sort of sad surprise at self, for in the 
first dark days of funereal gloom we are sure we 
shall never smile again nor put off the trappings 
of woe ; and we believe that impossible state of 
mind must be lifelong. It is a forgetfulness, a 
sort of treachery to the one over whose head- 
stone we wrote in heartbreak, was ever sorrow 
like unto my sorrow? Surprise comes that we 
could or would be comforted ; in fact, it must be 
admitted, are already so. In those days of per- 
petual anguish how brutal the thought of second 
marriage ! A whisper of such thing would be 
sacrilege. 

Thalia's dusty bombazine was in the bottom 
of the trunk or the sea, and her spirits rose with 
the first elastic rebound from heaviness cast by 
memory of the dearly loved, early lost, deeply 
mourned, and soon to be replaced husband of 
her youth. Her charming gaiete du coeur came 
back. With sparkling eyes and glittering hair 
she was a phantom of delight. Instead of the 
afflicting refrain about the returning dead Doug- 
las, usually hummed in the twilight, she gave a 
bar of the Blue Danube, and a few waltz steps 
with her own shadow, moving with airy ease and 



The Landing, 



buoyant grace. I never knew her so delightful, 
and we all caught the gay contagion. Later she 
overflowed in playful pranks and little mischiefs 
which culminated in the decrepit joke of tick- 
ling the back of my neck with a straw, making 
me jump and brush off a supposed representa- 
tive of the fourth plague of Pharaoh. 

There was no comment on her change of dress 
or manner, for we try to keep in that small and 
charming circle of human beings who never ask 
questions. And we felt sure that in good time 
the secret would be out. 

So our landing at Alexandria was a very dif- 
ferent affair from what it had been without the 
gray ostrich feather ! 

Strangely enough, the spectator in these famil- 
iar dramas sometimes has a lingering pity for 
the beloved dead, which the main actor does not 
share. Especially is this the case where the 
bereaved one is young and the observer old ; for 
the grief of later years though less vehement, is 
more oppressive than in youth and clings with 
rooted tenacity to its object. 

Thalia had been seven months an idc 
wife, two years a faithful widow. Her bus 
was snatched from her by a violent dear ; and 
the sharp pang which parted them was the 
only one then known; hence her first love 
brought her first sorrow. Not romantic, and too 
healthful for deep dejection, she did not seek 
solitude to nurture spectral fancies and drop into 
the melancholy whose common outlet is sad 
prose or elegaic verse. Given absolute health, a 



22 



The Repose in Egypt, 



cheerful disposition, ample fortune, grief is easier 
to bear than where there is the wrestle with two 
giants, poverty and indigestion, and nights of 
writhing in the fangs of neuralgia. She was 
born to trip it on the sunny side of the wall, to 
gather the roses and feed among the lilies. 
Fainter and fainter come the voices from the 
tombs, little by little the daylight of the world 
gains on the dreary night of mourning, the stars 
have willed it, Destiny foretold it, now it was 
gray, now purple, now a blushing gleam, now 
full dawn again, and lo ! in the golden kerchief, 
clad with beauty she is radiant as ever in the 
outlook toward second marriage. 

There are better players in the world than on 
the stage, and we need not seek Jo. Jefferson to 
realize how soon our places are filled when we 
disappear from the sight of our nearest and 
dearest. 

Sometimes it seems inexplicable that the grief 
of parted lowers is more lasting than the mourn- 
ing of the married. Is it not because the sen- 
tence of Death is final ? The black curtain 
dropped, that act is ended. The decree accepted, 
there is nothing to do but move forward into 
other scenes and form new ties and associations 
to people the emptiness which at first rules the 
universe. The human mind readily adjusts 
itself to a certainty, but while this side eternity 
the beloved one remains and unwed, the dream 
may go on unbroken, there are possibilities of 
re -union in the future. Among them, the secret 
unconfessed even to self, the hope cf a recovery 



The Landing. 



23 



of the object cruelly missed, renewal of the wor- 
ship of the ideal unfulfilled and the flowery 
garland woven in the freshness of morning. 

Useless is it to cry out if the soul we thought 
our very own has passed into the everlasting- 
silence, but while yet it is on the earth come 
questionings. The quarrel on such slight provo- 
cation, the letters, the souvenirs exchanged, the 
rings returned, have they indeed come back for- 
ever? Does he not share this wild yearning? 
In the hush of some wakeful night will he not 
feel the old time rush over him and pour out his 
love and his words, waiting, not quite despair- 
ing, to the answering spirit ? Or, under the 
thrill of the old familiar strain sung together in 
summer eves, will he not long, with longing past 
all power to endure, for the presence he cannot 
afford to lose? his guiding light when heart, 
voice, life itself were blended with another, and 
separation was — to die ? 

The thieving years, in passing, rob us of many 
precious possessions, and not the least of the 
jewels snatched from our treasure-house by Time 
is the blind unquestioning faith in the eternity 
of earthly love. You who write tenderly of re- 
unions after death, tell me not happy spirits 
revisit their houses of clay. No, no. It would 
be too sorry a sight to see our places filled, and 
to listen for, and hear not the faintest echo of 
the little stir we made on earth. 



24 



The Repose in £gyfit. 



III. 

SUEZ AND SINAI. 

Suez is a poverty-stricken place, rich in 
nothing but associations. Its straggling Louses 
of sun-dried bricks, glaring with whitewash, are 
near the line where the desert begins. A waste 
of yellow sand, it stretches away to the wilder- 
ness, whose silence is like the silence of death, 
whose desolation is best described in the Arabian 
phrase, " Out in the desert there is nothing but 
God." With the best field-glass, not a tree nor 
a shrub nor any green thing is to be seen on the 
African side of the Gulf. From the verdureless, 
wind-swept coast, dotted with mud hovels, the 
weary eye winders in delight to the mountains 
of Sinai, in the dazzling, speckless sapphire, lift- 
ing up peaks that appear airy and evanescent as 
passing drifts of cloud. He is a dull clod of 
clay who does not thrill in his inmost soul, when 
first he hears the name of the Mount of the Law, 
where Moses, the man of God went up, and the 
trumpet sounded long and waxed louder and 
louder, and the glory of the Lord came down. 
Then the rebellious host faltered, " Speak thou 
with us and we will hear, but let not God speak 
with us, lest we die." 

We knew it was folly to think of making the six 
days' march into the desert, which brings the trav- 
eler to Sinai. The limitation of sex, occasionally 
mentioned by the strong-minded, is a barrier eter- 



Suez and Sinai. 



nal as the red granite ; old as the world's founda- 
tions. Not for my vision was the ruined fort, 
e*aid to have been built by Eameses II., whose 
daughter drew Moses oat of the water and 
adopted him as her son. The cartouche with 
his name, signifying, Beloved of the Sun, is 
carved on the frieze of a ruined temple on the 
borders of the wilderness, sharply cut as though 
finished yesterday, a temple which historians 
tell us was founded centuries before the time of 
Abraham. This makes the convent begun by 
Justinian in 555, a modern structure, commem- 
orating the site of the Burning Bush. We 
should have been glad to see the sign-manual 
shown there of the false prophet. It was made 
by dipping his hand in ink (for he could not 
write), and has been the protection of the monks 
of St. Catherine and their brethren through cen- 
turies. They plaited their straws, and hoed 
their onions and joined in prayer at the foot of 
Sinai thirteen hundred years before the founder 
of Islamism was born. And hard by the .con- 
vent, at Jebel Mousa, is a high place, where 
legends told by the Faithful teach that Moham- 
med talked with God, as friend with friend. We 
women must die without the sight of much that 
is dear to the antiquarian heart. 

The three thousand years of Suez have 
brought nothing but bare existence to a few 
Bedouins, and in later times the ten thousand 
inhabitants are maintained by the canal and the 
railway. It has never held the commercial 
importance promised by the canal, and has the 



26 



The Repose in Egypt, 



usual lifelessness of Arab towns. Several mos- 
ques not imposing, may be visited, and in the 
bazars inferior stuffs and corals are sold to the 
unwary traveler for their weight in gold. 
Steamers run from Suez to Jeclda, the seaport of 
Mecca, the holy city seventy miles inland. Thus 
the way is made easier than it was formerly to 
the hundred thousand pilgrims a year, traveling 
to purchase Paradise by kissing the Black Stone 
which was brought from heaven by the angels. 
Their snowy wings still lift and float the Kisical, 
or covering of that most sacred of shrines. 

Glowing dreams cheer the heart and cool the 
brow of the true believer as he toils, ankle deep 
in sand, under a sky of heated brass, from which, 
the sun pours a blinding brightness, unshaded 
by vapor, mist or cloud. He knows that when 
the angel Tsrafil shall sound the blast of the 
resurrection, the Pilgrims shall rise and mount 
white winged camels, accoutered with saddles of 
gold, which stand waiting for the elect. From 
tents of hollow pearls will flock forth black-eyed 
Houris, and the meanest in Paradise shall have 
seventy-two of them, the four wives he had on 
earth, and eighty thousand slaves besides. There 
will be ceaseless music and enchanting visions, 
fadeless roses, tufted carpets, green flowered 
mantles, feasts always ready ; and the myriad 
souls, waiting by the well Zem-zem, with one 
taste of the elixir of life will be cured of all 
disease and enter eternal bliss. Winter frost 
cannot chill them, nothing can harm them fur- 
ther, for the dreamer shall rest under the 



Suez and Sinai. 



27 



perfumed tree which springs from the musky 
banks of the river Al-Cawthor. He will meet 
the shining legions who have fallen for the 
glory of Islam. Troops from the burning depths 
of Sahara, from the Indian Sea, from the wide 
plains of Sennaar, faithful found among the 
faithless ; followers of the green standard and 
bearers of the scimiter in whose shadow is Para- 
dise. Peacefully flows the bright river whose 
sands are jewels, and sweet the final rest on 
green pillows. Every day will bring glad sur- 
prises and night is a twilight of trances which 
are better than sleep. 1l poverty unspeakable, 
in nakedness, and misery, the Pilgrim is the 
richest of visionaries. Wave your hand to El 
Hadji, for he is the stuff of which holy martrys 
are made. 

Near Suez is a noted camping-ground for car- 
avans ; the camels of which sometimes number 
thousands. The Western traveler never loses 
his interest in the caravan; each one brings fresh 
and endless suggestion, vague imagining out of 
the voiceless regions traversed by the train 
which makes a sinuous line like a crawling ser- 
pent. To watch their comings and goings is to 
feel the spirit of the farthest East. The brown 
bales may be merely cotton, but we fancy them 
carefully packed freights of rare silks and gauzy 
tissues, such, as are not seen in dull cities where 
looms are smoky with coal and noisy with 
steam. The patient brutes, slaves of slaves, bear 
light robes of rainbow dyes and glimmering 
pearls sought by the veiled and delicate beautiea 



23 



The Repose in Egypt. 



of the harem. We fancy the route is scented 
by their rich spices, and sweet perfumes, frank- 
incense and life-giving balm, aromatic powders 
and costly juices that have been sought by 
famous women shining in song and story, eter- 
nally young and immortally beautiful. 

Maybe yon thirsty, withered beast has passed 
the abandoned cells of the cliff-dwellers of 
Arabia the stony, the unhappy. Certain it is he 
has knelt in the plain at the foot of Sinai, 
where debased Hebrews kindled unhallowed 
fires on strange altars, and returned to the 
animal worship of Egypt. His portion has 
been to toil over mountains of rock and blister- 
ing sand-plains, resting only at the wells which 
mark the few oases. By day a fierce heat like 
flame ; by night a radiance of stars so luminous 
we do not wonder they are worshiped by devo- 
tees in the country of the patriarch Job and the 
prophet Mohammed. 

As we gaze over the shimmering plain, ever 
present to imagination is Moses the hero of the 
Old Testament, who made the highest sacrifice 
possible to humanity, became a slave among 
slaves that he might deliver his people. He had 
commanded an army in the Ethiopian expedi- 
tion, and knew the way as well, beyond the Sea 
of Eeeds or Flags, for he had married the 
daughter of the chief of a tribe of Ishmaelites, 
or Arabs, who dwelt at the foot of Mount Sinai. 
The sterile, burnt-out region beyond the Land of 
Goshen is strikingly like portions of the Rocky 
Mountains, fit place for the silent communing 



Suez and Sinai. 



29 



of the Hebrew Cromwell, as the still margins ot 
the Black Ouse Kiver were to the preaching 
soldier, named by his loyal countrymen, the 
Eegicide. Recluses concentered on one thought 
become what the world calls fanatic. In the 
desert, Moses was a dreamer of dreams and a 
seer of visions. It is not easy to think of him 
as a shepherd or a lover, but he was both in the 
Plain of Midian. 

Half way down the bald and dreary summit 
of Horeb, under an overhanging rock, is a per- 
petual spring, the Fountain of Jethro. Moses 
must have made his midday meal in its shadow 
beside the cool water, and from the recess he 
watched the flocks of his father-in-law feeding 
on the scant herbage below. The stone on 
which he sat is yet pointed out to the traveler. 
Tiny ferns with hair-like stems cling to the moist 
places, and a wee, pink flower, hardy as the 
Alpine Edelweiss, starts up after the winter 
snows are melted. 

Not a great way from Moses's Seat shown on 
Horeb, another illustrious shepherd fed his flocks 
in the plains of Arabia. The great law-giver 
received, amid thunders and lightnings of fear- 
ful brightness, the commandment, " Thou shalt 
have no other gods before me. Hear, O Israel, 
the Lord our God is one God." The Arabian 
shepherd proclaimed to the idolaters of Mecca, 
"There is no God but God." It seems a rever- 
beration of the outcry on Sinai, spoken two 
thousand years before; and on those simple 
words, the Prophet we name false founded a 



The Repose in Egypt, 



religion which is something more than impos- 
ture and delusion. It has driven from its seat 
the commandments given on Sinai and the 
gentler teachings on Olivet, and to-day holds 
every shrine dear and glorious to the heart of 
Jew and Christian. 

IV. 

CROSSING THE RED SEA. 

The march of the Hebrews under Moses, can 
be traced with accuracy from the starting at 
Eameses to Heliopolis (where the great leader 
had been educated in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians), even into the terrible wilderness. 
The deeper the study of history, the more fully 
and clearly are the Holy Scriptures confirmed ; 
and, tried by the strict test of geography, the 
conditions of this region are the same as when 
signs and wonders were performed till the last 
blow broke the heart of Pharaoh. There is 
never any waste of miraculous power. The 
plagues were natural calamities, incident to 
Egypt, intensified and exaggerated, and the 
features of the peninsula are so changeless that 
the route of the Israelites may be traced and 
camping-places fixed with certainty. To-day 
the desert pilgrim finds the same springs of 
brackish water; the same groups of stunted 
palms, the acacia or shittim-wood, the country 
where quails yet abound, and pleasant valleys 
where he can reach sweet water, drink and live. 

The north end of the Red Sea exhibits the 



Crossing the Red Sea, 



3* 



same conditions as when Jehovah led his people 
like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron. The 
rise of the tide is from three to six feet, above a 
long, narrow sand-bank which stretches many 
miles westward, slightly covered when the tide 
is out. Before the canal was cut, caravans often 
crossed the head of the gulf in safety, and on the 
verge of the great sea when strong east winds 
blew, the waters were pressed back, sometimes 
so rapidly that shoals of fish were left dead on 
the shore; the water was changed to land and 
an easy path opened through the bed for a host. 
The Bedouins yet tell of ruins of cities on the 
eastern shore, where Pi-hahiroth was of old, and 
other armies besides Pharaoh's, flushed with 
conquest, have been destroyed by the treacherous 
winds and waves of Yam Suph or the " Sea of 
Keeds," as the Hebrews named it. In making 
the way fo? the ships, a work declared by 
Darius, the Ptolemies and Pharaohs, to be im- 
possible, V . de Lesseps records he has seen the 
north en(? of the sea blown almost dry, when 
next day the waters weje driven far up on the 
]and. When it blows from the south the tide 
joined to this wind makes a depth to be dreaded, 
where a few hours before the ford was dry. 

As the Israelites, fainting with fear and their 
hearts dying within them, lifted up their eyes 
and beheld the Egyptians marching after them, 
they " cried unto the Lord, and he caused the 
eea to go back by a strong, east wind all that 
night, and he made the sea dry land, and the 
waters were divided. It is a night to be much 



32 The Repose in Egypt. 

observed "unto the Lord for bringing them outoi 
the Land of Egypt; this is that night of the 
Lord to be observed of the children of Israel in 
their generations." ISTo other migration has 
been like that flight of a whole nation. They 
had eaten the unleavened bread of the Passover, 
with loins girded, with shoes on their feet, staff 
in hand; eaten it in haste. They were well 
warned and ready to move the day when the 
first Passover feast was done. That very night 
they w r ere cast out by their enemies, their ren- 
dezvous the wilderness, their goal the Promised 
Land. The road across the desert was before 
them, but God led them not the way of the Land 
of the Philistines, though that was near, for 
" God said, Lest peradventure the people repent 
when they see war, and return to Egypt.' 1 

In the roaring tempest, in confusion and alarm, 
six hundred thousand men with flocks and herds, 
their wives and their little ones huddled by the 
coast. These bond-slaves had been used to look- 
ing through green forests of reeds on the placid 
waters bordering the Plain of Zoan, and the 
''great sea" was a sight to fill them with awe 
and wonder, had there been no other terror. 
Through the cries of anguish and wdld prayers 
of the fugitives, the reassuring order came to the 
bewildered aud frightened souls, "Fear ye not, 
stand still and see the salvation of the Lord 
which he will show to you, for the Egyptians 
whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them 
again no more forever;' The strong wind blew, 
the waters were gathered together, the floods 




HEAD OF MENEPHTHAH, THE " PHARAOH 11 OF THE EXODUS. 



Crossing the Red Sea. 



33 



stood upright, a black wall on their right hand 
and their left. God's way was in the sea, and 
his path in the great waters, and his footsteps 
were not known. The ransomed crossed in 
'safety, the Egyptians followed in close pursuit, 
but the wind fell, the tide rose, the sea returned 
to his strength, foaming billows drowned the 
chariots and the horsemen, and of all the hosts 
of Pharaoh that came after them there remained 
not so much as one. They sank as lead in the 
mighty waters. 

It was my good fortune to know an English- 
man familiar with the regions round about Suez, 
who had crossed the Eed Sea ten times. He 
sought the route of the Hebrews and says he had 
marched in the midst of the sea near Pi-hahiroth 
(See Exodus xiv : 2) " The Place of Abysses." 
When the waves receded the land -became so 
solid that sometimes it scarcely took the imprint 
of a camel's foot. To experiment on the quality 
of the soil, he pressed the end of a cane into the 
ground, when "suddenly, at a few inches' depth, 
it was swallowed up nearly to the hilt." Pre- 
cisely the condition as when horses, horsemen 
and chariots were sunk. " And it came to pass 
in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the 
host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire, 
and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the 
Egyptians and took off their chariot wheels that 
they drave them heavily." It was light to the 
pursued, dark to the pursuers. There was no 
waste of power in the miracle of destruction, and 
Moses knew the doom of the proud, wheb no 
3 



34 



The Repose in Egypt. 



sang, " Thou stretchedst out thy right hand and 
the earth swallowed them." 

It was the beginning of liberty for the en- 
slaved Hebrews, and in the morning watch when 
Emancipation Day broke over the rock-moun- 
tains of Arabia, Israel saw the Egyptians dead 
on the sea-shore. Looking eastward the desert 
is bare till the eye reaches a clump of palms, 
warped and twisted by varying winds, the first 
oasis marking the watering-place known from 
immemorial ages as the wells of Moses. A green 
scum covers the pool, but under it the water 
boils up freshly as it did when the greatest of 
caravans encamped by the inexhaustible spring, 
and Miriam the prophetess and all the women 
after her went to greet the ransomed host. In 
this very spot she took up the song of Moses, 
answering, in chorus, " Sing ye unto the Lord for 
he has riumphed gloriously, the horse and his 
rider hath he thrown into the sea." 

A few tamarisks cling to life beside the wells, 
and dried carcasses of camels tell the woeful tale 
of privation and starvation in the road which 
runs eastward from Suez. There can be no 
doubt that this was the first halting-place for the 
fugitive slaves. Here the painted coffin, inclos- 
ing the mummy of Joseph, was rested from 
men's shoulders, and here the jubilee was 
sounded. 

Strange questions enter the mind of the student. 
Will the place of Exodus bo the open gate of the 
return of the chosen people? It is still called 
¥w Tongue of the Egyptian Sea by the natives, 



Alexandria. 



35 



and the miracle of the return will be as great as 
the Exodus when men shall go dry shod over 
Egypt's dark sea, and " when the Lord shall set 
up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble 
the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the 
dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the 
earth." 

Pretty myths hover over the region dear to 
the lover of Moses and the Prophets, stories of 
Andromeda and lovely nymphs of the Mediter- 
ranean, but there is not time to tell them now. 
In Mohammedan fables the legend runs that the 
po'nt where the stiff-necked Pharaoh was 
whelmed in the hill of waters, there are always 
breakers, reefs, and dangerous currents, over 
whose troubled depth, since that awful day, the 
spirit of the storm has never ceased to flap his 
sable wings. And the ghosts of the drowned 
Egyptians may be seen (by him who sees aright) 
ever moving in sad unrest at the bottom of tlie 
Sea. The lost souls are always busy there, re- 
cruiting their numbers with shipwrecked mari- 
ners, and sometimes hundreds come down at 
once, when their moanings can be heard like the 
moaning of the waves when the winds are low 

V. 

ALEXANDRIA. 

It has been said that Cleopatra is the one 
distinct figure of Egyptian history. This may 
be true to the tourist coming by way of Italy, 
but lor those who enter from Palestine, ii is 



36 



The Repose in Egypt. 



somewhat in the spirit of the Eoman Emperor, 
who, after visiting the shrines oF Holy Land, 
went to search the Eed Sea for the hosts who 
pursued the Hebrews, (petrified into rocks at the 
bottom ,) and to kiss tb e footsteps left i n the sands by 
the infant Jesus while He dwelt with his parents, 
safe from the vengeance of Herod. 

We have little time to mark the coral reefs 
of the Red Sea, which are marvelously beautiful. 
Their levels are slightly raised above the water 
and their varied color makes them appear like 
floating gardens. The flowery meads, not fitted 
to sustain palms and willows, are full of running 
vines of scarlet leaves and blooms. Lovely isles 
such as dreamy poets sing of, rocking with slow 
rise and fall, wafted by warm winds to happy 
shores or swinging like freighted vessels idly 
lying at anchorage. 

The waves dash over the surface and keep the 
basins and pools filled, and birds of swift and 
tireless wing dart across and circle round the 
red reefs making the air resound with shrill 
notes. 

At evening the ripples break in rings of iri - 
descent light about them ; a fringe beaded with 
brilliants like the coronation robes of an Indian 
Prince. The native boatmen note the phosphoric 
gleam and name the rainbow flashes, "jewels of 
the deep." 

Approaching Alexandria we feel we are enter- 
ins: the oldest domain of history Here are the 
most venerable records of the race of man, 
sculptured before the period when Abraham 



Alexandria. 



37 



drove his nerds into Egypt, in quest of fresh 
pastures which drought had destroyed in Canaan. 

Freshly come to mind the old, old stories which 
our mothers (they rest in peace!) taught us with 
our cradle hymns. We see the pathetic figure 
of Joseph, the darling boy sold as a slave by his 
brothers, and afterward set over all the Land of 
Egypt. The King's ring (such are found in the 
oldest tombs,) on his hand, a gold chain about 
his neck, his vesture of fine linen, his chariot 
next the jewelled wheels of the demigod who 
spoke and said, " I am Pharaoh and without thee 
shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the 
land of Egypt." A reality, even at this late 
hour of the changed yet unchanged Egypt, 
beside which all other kingdoms and empires are 
dim and their splendors transitory and fleeting. 

The Nile, the sacred, beneficent Nile, is alone 
like a god; and like a god the pagans worshiped 
and sacrificed to the divinity by which they 
existed. For the country was, and is the gift of 
the river; and without the overflow would be 
nothing but bare rock and sad. It varies from a 
width of ten miles to a shrunken strip of verdure. 
There is no border of famishing vegetation los- 
ing itself in drought. The water limit makes a 
dividing line, clean cut as with a sharp knife. 
You may lay one hand on the tenderest, most 
exquisite herbage in the world and fill the other 
with arid, gray sand. Perfected vegetation 
against absolute sterility, and all by the bounty 
of the blessed river. For fifteen hundred miles 
he moves solitary. 



3B 



The Repose in JEgyftt. 



During that long course, wholly unshaded, 
exposed to the evaporation of fierce sunbeat, 
lowered by thousands of canals, absorbed by 
porous banks and thirsty sands, maintaining by 
healthful water every living thing. 

When the star Sirius, the most adorable light 
in the universe of God, rises with the sun he 
outshines, the sympathetic stream begins to rise. 
Slowly it swells ; moving with such fate-like 
precision that agriculture is predetermined with 
the exactness of mathematics. There are no 
rain-clouds to be dreaded, no frosts to blight, no 
winds to lay the harvests low. Three months 
the Delta is a lake ; then the mud houses built 
on raised mounds stand like islands in the level 
expanse. The water carries a rich deposit of 
loam and the grounds needs nothing more, not 
even a sabbath-year to lie fallow. From the 
unknown ages, Nilus has almost invariably risen 
to within a few hours of the same time and to 
within a few inches of the same height, year 
after year. 

When the flood recedes the ooze is scratched 
with the crooked stick which has been the Ori- 
ental plough through fifty centuries, and three 
crops a } T ear of corn, wheat, sugar, cotton may 
be raised. The tranquil inundation, placid as 
everything is in this land of ceaseless calm, 
leaves no mark of violence; nothing is disturbed 
by the weight of the waters. Within banks the 
Nile carries a tremendous volume, but without 
rush or hurry; steadily flowing, majestic as the 
serene and stately sculptures on its shore which 



Alexandria. 



39 



look on with stony, sleepless eyes to all eternity, 
seeming to say while the river runs I stand. 

So the years come and go ; from the beginning 
the same, no guessing about the weather, no 
dread of changes for there will be none. Every- 
thing is foreknown and the seasons are arranged 
as by a Destiny. 

You may travel by steamer from Alexandria 
twelve hundred miles, and afterward in a light 
sailboat, only the guide-book may tell how far. 
Away, away, to mythic haunts of the Phoe- 
nix, the regions of Chimeras, Flying Serpents, 
Basalisks, Vampyres and Dragons ; where men's 
feet blister and lions' manes are scorched off by 
the heat. Of the mysteries and marvels of the 
Upper Nile, the ancients told many wonderful 
stories. Not the least among the wonders were the 
miraculous springs which supply "the life-giv- 
ing artery of Egypt whose pulse gives one throb 
a year." They tell us the water of the Nile never 
becomes impure, whether reserved at home or 
exported. On board vessels bound for Italy that 
which remains is good, while what they happen 
to take in on the voyage is corrupt. It is pre- 
served in jars like wine, and, anciently, with 
the age of the water was an increase of value, 
as with wine : — a legend we are disposed to 
doubt. 

Familiar as it was, by story and picture, I was 
not prepared for the appearance of the Land of 
Goshen, which lies to-day much the same as 
when seventeen hundred years before our era, 
Pharaoh gave it to Joseph. It is very like ttie 



40 



\e Repose in Egyfti. 



prairies of 1 Hi no" s ; richer, witli a lighter green — 
the true Nile-green — than the wheat lands of the 
Mississippi valley, and a more even level. It 
does not " roll " like our prairies, but stretches 
flat as a floor; fat with the black loam which 
forms the " golden soil." Sowing, ploughing, 
reaping go on at the same hour in the mild 
December which is sweet as bridal June with us. 

The papyrus — which the Greek wrote over 
with undying names — the rush on whose frail 
bark are records more enduring than marble, has 
disappeared ; but there are yet rank, aquatic 
plants, in the stagnant marshes, left after the 
overflow. They lift their graceful, feathery heads 
in close, dank masses, and a man in a rush canoe 
casting seed upon the waters, reminds us of the 
olden promise of bread and the fair child of the 
Hebrews saved from the curse of its brethren. 

From some such reeds as these was made the 
basket-boat, where the sorrowing mother — with 
what anguish of soul let other mothers tell — 
laid the baby Moses. There was an ancient be- 
lief that the papyrus was a protection against 
crocodiles, and the tall flags on the rivers bank 
were like these which shadow the shallow waters 
we see. We are very near the spot where the 
childless princess came down to bathe in the 
sacred river, and seeing the green ark among the 
flags she sent her maid to fetch it. The child 
wept, and Pharaoh's daughter adopted him with 
the name which means, "Saved from the Water." 

The tropic luxuriance of the Delta — the gar- 
den of the Lord as it is called in the Old Testa- 



Alexandria, 



41 



ment — was a delight to the Israelites. They 
longed for the fertile valley bearing melons, on- 
ions, cucumbers, which were part of their daily 
rations. They remembered the sycamore and 
fig trees, the luscious date palms and waving 
willows. When fainting in the blazing heats of 
Arabia, among awful fiery peaks and wells of 
bitter waters, their souls sunk within them. 
They had, in the grim and vast expanse, prickly 
thorns, starved weeds, and the st anted acacia of 
which the Tabernacle was made. They longed 
with feverish longing for draughts of the cool, 
abundant, brimming river of the land of cap- 
tivity and bondage and groaned out, " because 
there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken 
us away to die in the wilderness ? " Not strange 
that the heart of their meek leader was well- 
nigh broken in the thankless cause, and he 
prayed that the burden of the people might be 
removed, " I am not able to bear all this people 
alone, because it is too heavy for me. Kill me 
and let me not see my wretchedness. n 

After the ceaseless stir and activity of crowded 
Egypt, the stillness of the desert was like the 
silence of death. The dwarf mimosa, the outer 
picket of vegetation, fights for life at the foot of 
Sinai, but there is no chance for animals there. 
No bird, bee, insect, sings or hums in the lifeless 
waste, and the desolation was the more complete 
from contrast with the green valley left behind. 
The weird silence of the desert gave full effect 
to the dread thunders of Sinai, and the orders 



42 



The Repose in Egypt. 



under which the encampment was made and 
tents struck in the Sand-sea of Sin. 

The fertile Delta is the land shadowing with 
wings, and swarms with aquatic birds which ap- 
pear strangely tame. The pigeons are familiar 
to us, the nestlings of the belfries in our village 
churches. They do not excite our curiosity, nor 
do the cormorants, pelicans, or storks on the 
reedy margins. 

One bird, moving in robes of white, we single 
out for our inquiry and interest. The gentle 
Ibis ; the avatar or living emblem of the god 
Thoth or Hermes, the Egyptian deity who an- 
swered to the Mercury of the Greek. Its spot- 
less plumage well symbolizes the moon, and its 
snowy broad- winged counterpart in the Ever- 
glades of Florida is named the White Heron. 
Never has the beautiful bird, haunting 

" The gloomy moss-hung cypress grove " 

been so well described as by our poet, Maurice 
Thompson. The long, slender, curving neck 
is exceedingly graceful, and the snowy feathers 
of the Ibis, in the good old times of the gods, 
used to scare the crocodile and even kill him. 
It appeared in Egypt at the rise, and disappeared 
with the inundation of the Nile ; and such was 
its devotion to the Kingdom of the Pharaohs 
that it pined and died of self-starvation if sen- 
tenced to banishment from its native land. 
Spotless in outward, as well as inner life, it 
drank only of the purest water, and the strictest 
of the priesthood drank nothing except water 



Alexandria. 



43 



from the pools where the Ibis had been seen. 
To kill such a divinity was punishable with 
death. 

Besides, the Ibis was the deliverer of Egypt 
from the winged serpents of Arabia which, since 
the beginning, have guarded the divine perfume 
that lives in the frankincense-trees. In the time 
of Herodotus (and a very good old time it was,) 
tliey flew from Arabia, in the spring, through a 
strait between two mountains which the first 
of historians and story-tellers visited, and he 
saw prodigious mounds of serpent bones and 
ribs piled on heaps of different heights. Sup- 
posably the remains left by the avenging Ibis. 
But let us not smile too broadly at the tale. 
Hear Isaiah : " The burden of the beasts of the 
South ; into the land of trouble and anguish, 
from whence come the young and okHion, the 
viper, and fiery flying serpent." 

One writer affirms the sacred flying-serpent 
had wings like a grasshopper, and others that 
animals bred in the slime of the Nile were 
devoured by the friendly Ibis ; itself incorrupti- 
ble by death. If incorruptible, we cannot 
understand why they should be mummied, as 
we fouud them at Memphis done up in terra 
cotta jars, covered with a lid and sealed with 
lime. 

The sacred white bird and the asp are forever 
recurring in the hieroglyphs, and I was at 
some pains to find a genuine specimen of the 

"Pretty worm of JNilus 
That kills and pains not.' 1 



44 



The Repose in Egypt. 



It is a vile gray snake, mottled about the Lead 
with yellow splashes. The head is large and 
dilates like a cobra's when the reptile is excited. 
The bite — a mere prick almost painless — pro- 
duces gradual lethargy, overcoming the senses 
like natural sleep. Hence the name, Aspis som- 
nicuhsa. Cleopatra pursued conclusions infinite, 
of easy ways to die, and boasted 

" if knife, drugs, serpents have 

Edge, sting or operation, I am safe." 

and after many experiments she chose the death 
which follows the aspic's bite, to the "imperi- 
ous show of the full-fortuned Caesar." 

In the Delta, I made diligent inquiry about 
the Phoenix. It has disappeared from mortal 
sight, except in lurid chromos which emblazon 
the walls of insurance offices in the United 
States. Even good old Herodotus never saw it, 
except in a picture. Surely the student of ac- 
curate knowledge will thank me for copying his 
account of the bird : — 

14 It comes to Heliopolis but once in five hundred years 
and thrn only at the decease of the parent bird. If it 
bear any resemblance to its picture the wings are partly 
of gold and partly of ruby color, and its form and size 
perfectly like the eagle. They relate one thing of it which 
surpasses credibility. They say that it comes from Ara- 
bia to the Temple of the Sun, bearing the dead body of 
its parent, enclosed in myrrh, which it buries. It makes a 
ball of myrrh shaped like an egg, as large as it is able to 
carry, which it proves b} r experiment. This done it cxc; - 
vates the mass into which it introduces the body of the 
dead bird ; it again closes the aperture with myrrh, and 
the rtlioie becomes the same weight as when composed 
entirely of myrrh; it then proceeds to Egypt to the Temple 
of the Sun." 



Alexandria. 



45 



Kemembering this tradition, the Phoenecians 
gave the name Phoenix to the palm-tree, because 
when burnt down to the ground it springs up 
again fairer and stronger than ever. A more 
satisfactory interpretation of the antique myth 
than any other I have been able to find. The 
Egyptians supposed the Phoenix to have fifty 
orifices in his tail, and that after living one thou- 
sand years he builds himself a funeral pile, sings 
a melodious air of different harmonies through 
his fifty organ pipes, flaps his wings with a 
velocity which sets fire to the wood and so con- 
sumes himself. 

I asked, too, about Pygmies. They have 
vanished into the golden mist overhanging the 
First Cataract. We may safely presume our 
own Midgets are the last representatives of this 
interesting people, who by the help of ladders 
climbed up the goblet of Hercules to drink 
from its contents. 

VI. 

OBELISKS. 

Since the pillage of Alexandria, in 1882, it 
has lain an unburied wreck. There is not much 
left worth seeing, and you must draw on imag- 
ination to fill the empty, dreary spaces. The 
hackneyed sights are names familiar from school 
days. A twenty-second revolving light in the 
harbor has replaced the beacon in the Pharos — 
whatever that was — dedicated by the King 
Ptolemy to the Saviour God of those who travel 



4 6 



The Repose hi Egypt. 



by sea ; and in the island of that name Greek 
traders sought shelter before the days of Homer. 

Anciently, two great streets crossed each other 
at right angles ; in their intersected square was 
the superb mausoleum which held the body of 
Alexander. It was embalmed in Babylon, 
brought hither with dazzling pomp, and laid in 
its resting-place with honors due to a god. The 
warmest fancy cannot raise from these ashes the 
city declared the centre of Alexander's world 
when all was conquered. It was circled with 
stupendous w r alls, fifteen miles in circumference. 
Read Gibbon for accounts of it in the days of 
its glory, when the revenues of a province were 
allotted the crown princess for her sandal strings, 
when idleness was unknown among the people, 
and even the lame and the blind had industries 
suited to their condition. 

After the Saracenic conquest, the temples of 
Alexandria were one by one torn to pieces to 
build Cairo, the " City of Victory," and in one 
Turkish mosque there are four hundred Greek 
columns from this fallen star in the East, once a 
shrine to scholars and the greatest depository of 
learning in the world. The desolate column 
known as Pompey's Pillar is the last survivor 
of the four hundred belonging to the Temple of 
Serapis, the noblest building then on the face of 
the globe, except the Capitol at Rome. This 
shaft was perhaps part of the quadrangular por- 
tico, a matchless work, which sheltered marble 
statues, the best of Grecian genius, and was 
reached by one hundred steps of purest marble, 



Obelisks. 



47 



Among the columns, shaded from the fierce light 
and heat, wise philosophers walked and talked, 
asking then, as their thinking descendants yet 
ask, the old, unanswerable questions : Whence 
come I ? Where go I ? And wearily they 
worked at the unsolved problem : Given Self to 
find God. 

Here was the lecture-room of Hypatia, the 
beautiful, crowded with, the wealth and fashion 
of the luxurious Orient. The gilded chariots of 
effeminate, pleasure-loving youth stopped daily 
at her door, and her learning and eloquence, her 
spotless life and tragic death, shed a last illus- 
trious light over the fading myths of Greece. 
Here was the greatest library of antiquity, " the 
assembled souls of all which men hold wise," 
and here Cleopatra wore the holy garment of 
the goddess Isis and conquered the conquerors. 
Here Mark Anthony gave the world for love 
and thought it well lost ; and while he kissed 
away kingdoms and provinces, she demanded of 
her royal lover the whole of Judea and Arabia ; 
but the mailed Bacchus pacified her with the 
present of two hundred thousand volumes for 
the Library of the Serapion. No trace of these 
glories, as we drive through sandy waste and 
Moslem tombs, beyond the stir of city life, to 
the site of the despoiled temple which once 
lifted its proud front and glittering roof, plated 
with metal, against the rainless blue. 

In order to mingle the transient glory of his 
Egyptian campaign with the abiding fame of the 
Pharaohs, Napoleon, in 1798 ; buried the soldiers 



4 3 



The Repose in Rgyflt. 



who fell in the attack on Alexandria at the base 
of Pompey's Pillar. The whole army assisted 
at the august ceremony, and the names of the 
heroes are recorded below the inscription of the 
Emperor Diocletian, " the Invincible." How 
well he understood human nature, that young 
general of twenty-nine years, who with the loss 
of only thirty men, planted the tri-color on the 
walls of Alexander's city! Where is the 
Frenchman who would not do and dare all 
things for such a record of service rendered ? 

The great historian will tell you the tale of 
final ruin of the Serapion by Christians, when 
the marble walls were a fortress ; and how the 
successor of Mohammed destroyed the library 
the reader near his school days knows. The 
books, mainly of papyrus, supplied the four 
thousand baths with fuel for six months. When 
the victorious general sent to the Caliph toknow 
his pleasure, said the fanatic Omar: "If the 
writings of the Greeks agree w r ith the Koran, 
they are useless, and need not be preserved ; if 
they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to 
be destroyed.' 7 A strange order for one who 
habitually quoted the Arabic proverb: "Para- 
dise is as much for him who rightly uses the pen 
as for him who takes the sword." 

Such is the tale taught in our schools ; but the 
earliest and wisest of Egyptologists say that the 
famous treasures of the Alexandrian Library 
were stolen, scattered in portions, and sold to 
Constantinople, long before Caliph Omar invaded 
Egypt. The accepted story is demonstrably a 



Obelisks. 



49 



tribute to the Empire of Fable. Mohammedan 
heroes, in the fresh inspiration of their new faith, 
and secure in the sanctity of their cause, de- 
molished the old foundations of many kingdoms, 
and tried to conquer Egypt in the same way. 
u Know, O soul," they said, with reverence and 
solemnity, " that everything in the world that is 
not of God is doomed to perish. " 

The fine, susceptible mind of the Arabs, their 
keen, quick apprehension, enabled them to ap- 
propriate rapidly scientific researches of the 
conquered Egyptians ; and the hoarded treasures 
of priestly lore were transferred to Cairo, the new 
city, founded opposite Memphis. Oaliph Omar 
was shrewd enough to see that a restless, mari- 
time capital, often insurrectionary, and rent by 
bloody religious feuds, was not the best center of 
the new religion he intended to plant in the Nile 
valley. The victorious Moslem in Alexandria 
boasted of having captured a city of four thou- 
sand palaces. He dwelt with rapture on the 
elegance of the Gymnasium, and the space and 
splendor of the Hippodrome for chariot-races and 
games ; and such was the store of wheat sent by 
caravan to Medina, that he declares the first of 
an unbroken line of camels entered the Holv 
City of the Prophet before the last camel had 
left Egypt. This latter declaration we may be 
permitted to doubt. 

Not far from Pompey's Pillar, there were till 
recently two obelisks of the fine red granite of 
Syene, engraved with the names of thePharaons 
who placed the frontier of Egypt just where 
4 



50 



Uie Repose in Egypt, 



they pleased ; the throne-names which appear 
often on the sacred beetles in the hearts of mum- 
mies. The obelisks (named Cleopatra's needles ; 
why or when I know not), were symbols of sun- 
beams, or taper fingers of the sun, ever pointing 
upward to the flaming god of Eastern idolatry. 
They were from the sacred and learned city of 
On — city of the evening sun, seat of solar 
worship — where Joseph married the priests 
daughter. They may have seen him and his 
bride, with their arms round each others necks, 
posed like the sculptured figures about us, bear- 
ing the bland, restful expression of a stately pair, 
linked in loving marriage. The continual re- 
currence of such pictures of husband and wife, 
with arms entwined, makes us think those 
wedded lovers in old times were of a race not 
only affectionate, but demonstrative, and not 
ashamed of public stare or criticism. Gazing in 
each other's eyes, with quiet admiration, the 
strange, sad, half-smile on their lips, which 
modern sculptors vainly try to reproduce, thus 
they have sat for thousands of years, worship- 
ping the one eternally beautiful and beloved. 
Among stiff, grim drawings of all possible and 
impossible animals and plants, it was always a 
refreshment to come on this pleasant picture, 
which needs no reader of hieroglyphs to interpret. 
It can have but one meaning. 

One of the obelisks, which lay prostrate for 
leuturies in sand and mud by Pompey's Pillar, 
■sow stands alone and gloomy in the murky air 

the Thames, above Waterloo bridge. Its 



twin-brother may be seen by the reader, in a re- 
moter country and a stranger environment, in 
die New York Central Park. The far New 
World, which comes to learn of the oldest, 
boasts of this ancient monument, and of the 
mixed spoils carried away, year by year, by 
greedy collectors, and rich hunters of curios. 

In the year 357, Constantius, son of Constan- 
tine, wished to present the Eomans some memo- 
rial of his gratitude for their munificence. He 
thought first of offering an equestrian statue, 
but concluded an obelisk from Heliopolis would 
be the most kingly present to the most arrogant 
of his allies. The death of Constantine bad 
suspended the transportation of one of these 
marvelous pillars, and left it, after floating down 
the Nile, neglected at Alexandria. Constantius 
had a special vessel provided to convey the tre- 
mendous weight, and it was safely transferred 
from the Nile to the Tiber, and raised, with 
great rejoicings and solemn ceremonials, in the 
Circus Maxim as at Eome. Long before, Augus- 
tus had embellished the amphitheatre with a 
similar trophy, and the Emperor doubtless 
dreamed, as he sat alone in his sacred car, daz 
zling the sight with robes encrusted with gems, 
that the obelisk he offered to propitiate the 
populace would remain till the sun himself 
should die. Scholars of the nineteenth century 
are doubtful if it still exists. In what siege of 
the many Koman sieges, or in what earthquake 
the shaft was overthrown, is not known. The 
antiquary vainly seeks its history and its frag- 



52 



The Repose in Egypt. 



ments, if they be spared from barbarian fury 
and violence. 

The Vatican is enriched with obelisks, and 
beside the Faininian gate stands one, in the 
Piazza del Popolo, which Moses must have seen 
when he was a student in the learning of the 
Egyptians. It is the most ancient thing in the 
Eternal City, and old Eome is young beside the 
hoary antiquity of that granite sunbeam. The 
obelisk in front of the Church St. John Lateral r, 
is the tallest in the world, 105 feet in height. 
It is covered with the choicest sculptures. The 
tracings of the figures drawn in hieroglyph writ- 
ing, are delicate as cameos, carefully engraved 
as the intaglio of a ring, and bear the appear- 
ance of being impressed with seals, instead of 
being wrought with chisels into stone that is 
hard as adamant. 

A history of what it has seen, and what it 
has survived, would fill many a volume. The 
procession of nations in resistless march passed 
by, till four successive empires, drunk with 
glory, declined and died, while this consecrated 
pillar pointed heavenward in Egypt. A living 
interest attaches to it, because it retains the 
symbol of the force which first opposed the 
power of the living God. For unto that Pha- 
raoh, Thothmes Second, whose cartouche is en- 
graven on its side, was the message sent through 
Moses, "that thou may est know that there is 
none like Me in all the earth." He was one of 
the greatest of the line which ruled for twenty- 
three centuries in the boasted purity of unmixed 




HEAD OF THOTHMES II. 



1 



Ooehsks* 53 



royal Wood. Oar one hundred years dwindle to 
a grain of sand in the presence of the records on 
these granite shafts. It is doubtful if the care- 
ful tracings will long endure foreign atmospheres. 
The moist, smoky air of England blackens and 
mildews the obelisk set up with rejoicings and 
imposing ceremonials; and already the scattered 
brethren, banished to life-long exile among alien 
races, look dreary and decaying. Farthest out 
of place is the lonesome obelisk in gay and 
laugbing Paris, torn from its home by the sun- 
flooded palms, the Nile, and the slow, sad song 
of the sakia. At its base the bloody waves of 
revolution surged and broke, and some mad 
spirits attempted its overthrow ; but in vain. 

VI. 

OBELISKS. 

Constantinople holds an obelisk transported 
thither when Byzantium was capital of the 
Empire of the East, and the legions loyally 
raised the new emperors upon their shields. It 
stands in the At-Medan,ov horse market, an open 
space in old Stamboul, anciently the Hippodrome, 
and has seen " the entire universe pass by between 
walls of silk. 1 ' There, amid shouts of frantic 
crowds, the jeweled chariots flew before the 
emperors of the Bosphorus. Turn to the pages 
of Gibbon for accounts of the unapproachable 
splendor of the pearl of two seas, in the centuries 
when tributes from every known continent were 
wafted into the sacred waters of the Golden 



54 



The Repose in Egypt, 



Horn. The city of Oonstantine was then a 
museum of priceless treasures from Italy, Greece, 
Egypt, and Asia Minor. In stately porticos, 
colossal equestrian statues rose on loftly pedestals 
in front of theatres and baths. The granite 
column of Marcius is there still, bearing its 
marble cippus, with the imperial eagles , but the 
temples and palaces have vanished like visions 
of the night. Of the spoil from Egypt — the 
Cleopatra's needles and bronze sphinxes couched 
on porphyry pedestals — one obelisk only is a final 
reminder. It looks melancholy and far from 
home; chilled by mists from the Black Sea and 
the gray winged vapors flying from the Mar- 
mora. The lone sunbeam is dulled in the clouds 
of Constantinople, pale and shadowy beside the 
red gold of Egypt. 

Under a pitiless destruction, to which the slow 
decay of time is gentle, the statues of emperors, 
gods, heroes, have been reduced to lime The 
rows of marble seats were torn away by Soly- 
man, the Magnificent, to build his palaces. 
Eighty exquisite columns, which supported the 
Emperor's box, are gone forever ■ and the vast 
area of the Hippodrome, 900 feet long and 450 
feet broad, is largely built over. 

Many a trophy won in bloody fight has this 
obelisk seen. The renowned brass horses, above 
the entrance of St. Mark's, Yenice — the only 
representative of the famous alloy of copper, gold 
and silver — -were brought here from Chios, by 
Theodosius, Some clay I hope to tell you of the 
most interesting relic of Grecian antiquity, to 



Obelisks. 



55 



which we now give a passing glance, because it 
stands near our obelisk. It is a serpent column 
of bronze, or copper, with three bodies twisted 
spirally. Three heads, spreading outwardly, 
once upheld the golden tripod of the Pythia, the 
maiden priestess of Apollo, in Delphi, when she 
gave the inspired oracle to the poets. Herodotus 
writes : ll The Greeks, after the victory of Platea, 
479 B. C, collected all the money, and put aside 
one-tenth of it for the god of Delphi, With this 
they made a tripod of gold, which they offered 
to the god ; it was placed upon the three-headed 
copper serpent, which was near to the altar." 

The consecrated tripod was carried off by the 
Phocians in the Holy War j but the bronze pil- 
lar remained till the insatiate and bloody Con- 
stantine set it up in his capital. The serpent heads 
have been lost, supposably in the siege of Starn- 
boul by the Turks in 1453, It is said one is 
among the confused relics in the Church of that 
sweet St. Irene, who had her son's eyes put out 
with red-hot irons in the porphyry chamber, 
where she had borne him ; but I failed to find it 
there. Mutilated and degraded, the entwined 
serpents bear testimony to the religion of the 
Greeks and the rapacity of their conquerors. 
That nothing may be lacking, it has recently 
been " restored " by a coat of fresh green paint. 
It is a newly- wrought statue beside the over- 
shadowing granite quarried three centuries before 
Abraham was driven by famine into Egypt. On 
the side of the obelisk may be seen the elliptical 
frame, or cartouche of the second Pharaoh, dating 



56 



The Repose in Egypt. 



the mystic era when civilization began in the 
valley of the Nile, sixteen hundred years before 
the star-led Magians sought the caravan-route to 
Bethlehem. 

A strange doom has brought these two monu- 
ments together, symbols of religions long dead 
and gone, and planted them near the minaret of 
St. Sophia, where the Muezzin proclaims the one 
God and calls the followers of Mohammed to 
prayer. The Egyptians used to say to the first 
Grecian philosophers : " You Greeks are mere 
children, talkative and vain, you know nothing 
at all of the past." To the beauty-loving 
Athenian, the valley of the Nile was a land of 
enchantments. The prehistoric life, the laby- 
rinths and pictured tombs, their giant statues 
sitting on granite thrones, their sorceries and 
mysticism, shrouded it in a veil of illusions and 
marvels. Side by side in the Hippodrome, the 
representative columns of the strongest race and 
the most beautiful race, keep a solitude unbroken, 
though in the midst of a stream of tumultuous 
life, not far from the pontoon bridge, which one 
hundred thousand persons cross daily. 

The single block of stone, as its pompous 
declaration declares, was lifted by godlike power 
on an everlasting pedestal, and overwritten with 
a language too holy to be entrusted to the vulgar. 
It must have had a sort of mystery even to the 
people of its own generation, when first the 
colossal mass was placed in front of the Temple 
of the Sun, at Heliopolis. Theodosius the Great, 
transported it to Constantinople, A. D., 390, a 



Obelisks. 



57 



memorial of his victory over Maximus, usurper 
of the Empire of the West. The monolith rests 
on a pedestal seven feet high, which is based on 
three circular steps. On one side, sculptured in 
bas-relief, are the Emperor Theodosius, with his 
wife, enthroned, receiving ambassadors and the 
homage of barbarians. On another, the same 
figure, viewing chariot-races and the Olympic 
games. The third shows the Hippodrome and 
its adornments, and the machinery by which the 
obelisk was raised, after it had been thrown 
down by an earthquake. In the fourth bas-relief, 
the Emperor appears with the crown princess 
holding a diadem. 

The hieroglyphs engraved on the red granite 
shaft are of different periods, and belong to sev- 
eral dynasties. The side facing the South is 
inscribed with the following touching and sim- 
ple prayer, from one of the greatest of the Phar- 
aonic kings to the life giving deity : 

"God Phta Sakaris. 

"Grant power, and cover with the principle 
of divine wisdom the gentle king, Oh! guardian 
Sun, vigilant and just Sun, continuator of life. 

"Guide his innermost thoughts, so he may 
show himself active and just in all things. 

" Sublime Wisdom, grant to him the principle 
of thy essence, and the principle of thy light, so 
that he may collect fruits in the impetuosity of 
his career. 

"Four times he thus distinctly implores thee, 



58 



The Repose in Egypt. 



Vigilant Sun of Justice of all times ! May the 
request which he makes to thee be granted to 
him." 

Many a scene, revolting to humanity, has this 
obelisk looked upon. One of the saddest was 
when the conqueror of the Huns, Persians, Afri- 
cans, Vandals, and Goths — Belisarius, surnamed 
" The Glory of the Greeks " — with eyes blind 
and heart-broken, groped his way, begging for 
bread at the base of the monuments of antiquity 
which his arms had so often defended and saved 
from destruction b}^ barbarians. There are gran- 
ulation and high ceremonial when the poor, mis- 
placed obelisks, scattered to the four winds of 
heaven, are set up on foreign shores. To me, 
they appear monarchs banished to lifelong exile, 
uncrowned, mourning for the cloudless face of the 
god of their idolatry. 

To rest undisturbed in the dry, dewless air of 
Egypt, is earthly immortality. Names idly 
scribbled by travelers remain indelible as though 
deeply carved; and lotus-wreaths round the 
heads of mummies are perfectly kept in the 
painted tombs scented yet with strange spicery. 
Well might the arrogant Pharaohs name them- 
selves " Lords of the Daybreak," " Children of 
the Sun." So unchangeable is this dead-alive 
country that modern engineers have adopted a 
stone record, forty -five hundred years old, and 
from it have exact routes of travel in the Delta — 
metes and bounds, oases and wells, given with- 
out fault, and relied on by English armies of to- 
day. It is to be hoped that England's steady 



Cleopatra. 



59 



hand on Egypt may protect her memorials of 
the- past, and one day lift the glorious statue of 
Barneses from the mud, and set the godlike face 
once more to the morning sun and the river of 
his love. 

VII. 

CLEOPATRA. 

We must not leave Alexandria without further 
mention of Cleopatra. In these tropic airs she 
rode on swift camels and floated in gilded barges 
with Anthony, and after years of revel, here she 
was buried with imperial pomp in his tomb. 

You know she was last of the race of Ptolemies 
and was of Greek descent. Hers is a melodious 
name, through many generations a favorite in the 
royal families of Macedonia and Greece, and it 
had a sweet meaning for the little girl in her 
downy cradle : li The Pride of her Father." No 
pri icess of unmixed Oriental blood was ever so 
named, for in the East the pride of fathers is 
bound up in their sons and the word is not empty 
sound to those who comprehend. 

We ask, as thousands have asked before us, 
What was the secret of her charm? The his 
tori an who lived within her century and had per- 
haps the testimony of men who had seen the 
siren, describes her as rather slight in stature, 
not so beautiful in person as bewitching in man- 
ner. Her whole aim and study was the art of 
pleasing, and her voice was like a musical instru- 
ment tuned with many strings. She had at 



6o The Repose in Egypt. 

command seven languages in wliich she ad- 
dressed ambassadors at her court, each in. his 
own tongue ; she knew how to adapt herself to 
th.e varying moods of men, governing them by 
change with resistless fascination. 

In the ruinous roads of Alexandria there is 
not one trace of the shining marble pavement 
where the capricious witch, yielding to Anthony's 
humor, hopped forty paces through the streets ■ 
nor is there sign of the palace where she was 
unrolled from the bale of carpet, and tamed with 
one glance the mighty Julius. There later she 
vainly tried her charm on the cautious and cruel 
Octavius Caesar. Nor is there one stone left on 
another of the monument where, close to the 
Temple of Isis, she collected treasures, gold, sil- 
ver, emeralds, pearls, ivory, ebony and cinna- 
mon, heaped with quantities of combustibles 
ready to consume her misfortunes and herself in 
one tremendous flame. 

This is the site of the city which saw the 
costly shows for the people which almost made 
them forget the extravagance that drained the 
royal treasury. Here she sat in a chair of jew- 
eled gold on a tribune of silver, wearing the 
inany colored robe of Isis, calling herself a god- 
doss. Enthroned beside her was Anthonj^, her 
king, in regal diadem and Oriental scimitar, 
beneath their feet crimson scarfs on which sat 
their twin children named the Sun and Moon, 
kings of kings. One little prince in Median 
dress, with turban and tiara, the other in long 
cioak and slippers, his head circled by a diadera. 




THE IBIS, 



Cleopatra. 



61 



In wanton waste they broke alabaster boxes 
made from the mines east of the Nile and filled 
the whole palace with the precious perfume. 
With the masters of the world, the queen feasted ; 
she gamed, she hunted, she drank. The stories 
of her salt fishing and of the pearl ear-ring need 
no repetition here. They have been recorded 
with the undying names of eternal Eome, and 
accounts of her rambles at night in a soldier's 
cloak, seeking adventures. 

Tricked in her best attire she showed herself 
to the populace at theaters and in the crowds of 
the Circus or Hippodrome, where chariot-rac s 
were made in power and splendor which Eome 
could not surpass ; and in the Gymnasium with 
the small white hand familiar to the lips of 
kings, she crowned the best wrestlers and boxers. 
In company with Anthony, she fed to the sacred 
crocodiles, cakes and wine and when the sun, 
looking over the hills of Arabia, kissed the 
statue of Memnon, they listened to the wondrous 
songs without words that answered the warm 
touch of the Lord of the Daybreak. They 
moved in state, surrounded by a body-guard of 
four hundred Gauls — after Cleopatra's death 
given by Octavius to Herod. And, by way of 
variety in their pastimes, they made ghastly 
trials with unknown poisons on slaves and con- 
demned criminals. LiKe victims foreseeing their 
approaching doom, they sought knowledge of 
the swiftest, surest, most painless death. 

The Pharos was a square building of white 
limestone, laid in several stories, each smaller 



62 



The Repose in Egypt. 



than the one below it. A winding road led to 
the top, and Cleopatra drove a pair of horses to 
the summit and there turned and drove them 
down again. Doubtless they consulted the sa- 
cred bull, Apis, with small faith in his divinity , 
visited Lake Moeris to laugh at the ascetic Jews 
on its marshy shore and in their mad pranks 
threaded the mazy Labyrinths which after all 
were not serpentine, but quadrangular, with 
rooms and passages of multiplied doors. Blind- 
ing structures for concealing the coffins of their 
builders. In their impious daring they must 
have entered the Pyramids and wondered at the 
mountains of stone piled over the tomb of one 
king. Perhaps in mockery they knelt to Sera- 
pis, the Sun-god, who ruled the hours and the 
seasons, the winds and the storms, king of the 
stars — himself an immortal fire. 

Plutarch records that his grandfather had ac- 
counts from, or, as we might say, had interviewed 
the cooks of Alexandria who basted wild-boars 
for the suppers whose profusion shamed the del- 
icate banquets of Apicius. Eead his quaint 
chronicle and for the spirit of the "Serpent of 
old Nile," who professed to believe her soul had 
once been the soul of a tigress, read the sensu- 
ous poem of W. TV. Story. Her lament for the 
lost existence when she knew no law but the law 
of her moods. The tiger blood in her was 
roused when she ordered the assassination of her 
sister, in the Temple of Diana whither she had 
fled for refuge, for it was Cleopatra's pleasure 
there should be no other heir near the throne, 



Cleopatra. 



63 



and her cruelties might go far to converting one 
to the doctrine of metempsychosis. 

When present with Anthony she gave him no 
time to think, lest reflection and repentance 
might come to rob her of her hero. When 
absent she sent him love-letters enclosed in onyx 
and crystal caskets, and worded with passionate 
appeal. Meanwhile the slaves hungered and 
thirsted and went starving to untimely graves. 
Whole provinces were beggared in order that the 
matchless pageantry might not flag. 

There is a portrait of Cleopatra at Denderah in 
a temple which she built to Ammon, the god 
under whose sunny wings Egypt lay basking. 
Like the ancient temples everywhere, this has 
been a quarry for building-stones and whole 
towns have been raised from its fragments. The 
Sun-king and his worshipers have passed into 
the region of romance and fable and the most 
commanding Queen, of History is almost a myth 
in this degraded spot. 

What do the Bedouins care for except back- 
sheesh ? 

Usually Egyptian temples were open to the 
sky but this was roofed. A group of marble 
columns rise from the dust and sand-heaps, 
swarming with vermin, which surround the 
temple. Arab huts are stuck among them ; and 
on the adytum of the temple the low born Sheik 
of his tribe has set the mud bricks for his house. 
It is dirtier than a kennel. A den, a sty for 
beings apparently children of the slime and ooze 



6 4 



The Repose in Egypt, 



of the river ; creatures sprawling in the sun like 
lizards and frogs. 

Once this was a court all greenery ; blooming 
gardens, rushing waters, plashing fountains run- 
ning like quicksilver in the sunlight and drop- 
ping into alabaster basins. Now not a tree, not 
a shrub nor blade of grass is in sight. Stoop 
under the low door, a small dark stone room, the 
boudoir of the peerless queen. It is a sort of 
tombs or jail, where government criminals are 
confined. It reeks with noisome smells and 
filth, and prisoners lie prone in abject wretched- 
ness on the floor. 

With a lighted torch in hand the tourist sur- 
veys the portrait on the grimy wall, which many 
travel far to see. The Arab torches flare wildly 
in the drafts, the smoke is stifling. Higher, 
Abdullah and Hassan, lift up the lights while 
we study the picture ; not twice in a life-time 
shall we see the face of such a sorceress. The 
sculptures are not handsomely cut, and are 
crumbling, but we trace the one authentic 
portrait. The features are small, and lovers of 
Greek lines are compelled to admit the nose is 
not correct. In fact it turns up a little — the 
nose of the all-conquering beauty! — and the lips 
are too full for our ideals. 

How are the mighty fallen! In an innermost 
sanctuary of the resplendent palace dedicated 
by the priestess of Love and Beauty to worship 
of the sun, the Sheik has chosen to place his cel- 
lar, and made it a deposit for refuse which may 
only be hinted at. This shrine once sparkled 



EGYPTIAN STANDARDS. 




FOKxMS OF ISIS. 



Cleopatra. 



65 



with gold and silver, amber and ivory, a recess 
veiled by richest curtains fringed with gems 
from Ethiopia and India. It was redolent of 
mask and rose-oil, and the costly ointments kept 
in alabaster boxes made sacred by the offering 
of Mary. Purple cushions on soft couches lined 
the voluptuous resting-place, and if ghosts are 
permitted to haunt the scenes of their earthly 
existence, surely Cleopatra might be allowed one 
moment of abhorrence in this spot. It would 
add to the torment of Hades. 

On the capitals of the few spared columns is 
the Egyptian Athor, or Yenus, bearing a peculiar 
majesty and sweetness but remote from the 
loveliness of the Greek Aphrodite. Here, too, 
are colossal figures of Caesar's sons in the regal 
crown of the Ptolemies. They are not well 
drawn and the stone begins to crumble. Let 
them go ; the poet of all time has given us a 
hint of the Queen: 

" For her person, 

It beggared all description."— 

There is the master's outline, fill up and color 
to suit your own ideals. And paint me this 
picture, painter, people the emptiness with 
princes, priests, courtiers, a worshipful throng 
crowned with garlands and robed in costliest 
vestment attended by slaves whose breath is of 
no more account than the tenant of one of the 
heaped-up ant-hills. 

From the gray shifting sand unearth the 
painted gateway, guarded by obelisks, the gran- 
5 



66 



The Repose in Egypt. 



ite sunbeams ever reminding the worshipers of 
the supreme of the many gods of Egypt. The 
approach through avenues of sphinxes and colos- 
sal sculptures in white and red marble. High 
flaunting over all, hang out the scarlet and azure 
flags with Isis-headed standards. The ponder- 
ous red flag-staffs are yet found among fragments 
of painted walls and pillars that used to fence 
the august sanctuary. In these cities they are* 
so numerous that when Homer called Thebes 
the City of a Hundred Gates, it was not poetic 
exaggeration. Acid to the glowing picture 
what no painter has painted, and no poet can 
sing: the ceaseless movement of an overgrown 
civilization. The armies, the vast processions, 
the strange barbaric music of crashing cymbals 
and fishskin drums, the rattle of myriad chariots, 
the clang of steel and brazen arms, the noise of 
the captains and the shoutings. 

Could we wake those wild lovers from the 
long sleep where they were laid away surrounded 
by familiar objects, so that on rising after a 
thousand years of slumber the dead might not 
feel estranged, and could we bring them to see 
this squalor, they might well ask what power 
could destroy their works, built for eternity ? 
Was it earthquake ? I think not. The destruc- 
tion has been too deliberate and complete for 
anything but conquering armies equal in might 
to the ones which of old defended them. They 
must have labored almost as long to undo, as 
their predecessors did to set up the grand, majes- 
tic works. The statues seem all-powerful, with 



Cleopatra, 



67 



hands resting on their knees in the attitude of 
repose ; and one has the feeling that the giants, 
serene of aspect, have lost their wish to slay and 
devour, and now sit, in stony stillness after toils, 
enjoying the sunshine and ceaseless calm. 

The dreaming traveler turns from dreamy 
statues to the woman who held in check the 
generals of wars which changed the map of the 
world, and to the miseries of millions who did 
awful deeds in the teeming population of Egypt. 

How Cleopatra saved herself from degradation 
by death, and obliged Augustus to content him- 
self with her effigy carried in his triumph ; how 
her sons marched in chains through Kome, is 
too familiar a story to need repetition here. 

When Anthony called her his " Serpent of 
old Nile," he felt the fascination of her eyes. 
Hear the gray-haired warrior rushing to suicide ; 
because a Eoman might not survive his good 
fortune : " I am dying, Egypt, dying ; only I 
here importune death awhile, until of many thou- 
sand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips." 

And as the shadows of the last mystery gath- 
ered before his sight, the Past with its pomps 
and glories, by that one woman lost forever, his 
dying charge was worthy the Anthony of the 
great triumvirate. He knew himself a poor, 
fallen man, caught in the strong toil of grace 
spread for him; the deeper in the debasement 
from having been a hero. The Eoman spirit 
leaped up and went out in one up-springing 
flash- 



68 



The Repose in Egypt. 



u The miserable change now at my end 
Lament nor sorrow at ; but please your thoughts 
In feeding them with those my former fortunes 
Wherein I lived the greatest prince o' the world, 
The noblest; and do now not basely die, 
Not cowardly, put off my helmet to 
My countryman. A Roman by a Roman val- 
iantly vanquished." 

I suppose they made a mummy of her, the 
exquisite, the beauty-loving, after the mariner 
described in hideous detail by Herodotus. The 
professionals filled her veins with subtle medi- 
cines, swathed the sinuous limbs in bandages, 
spicery, and gummed the body with varnish : 
and the revolting process was called embalming; 
as though costly drugs and bitumen from the 
Dead Sea had been potent to keep the dear dead 
woman from decay. 

The darkness of the prison-house was relieved 
by gaudy figures on the mummy cases, painted 
brilliant blue, yellow, vermilion and black. 
Then they were gilded and the portraits with 
awful glass eyes follow you, stare at you, as 
though the sleepers below had waked from fear- 
ful nightmare and lay transfixed, unable to move. 

Perhaps the triple coffins, shaped to the 
slight figure of the enchantress, may yet be 
found, dragged from the alabaster sarcophagus 
and Cook's Tourists may peer into the coffins 
and behold the most sweet Queen crowned with 
lotus-wreaths as she entered the long sleep, 
decked with jewels as in life, robed in fine vest- 
ure her fair belongings at hand ready for her to 
make an immortal toilet after the repose of 
almost two thousand years. 




EGYPTIAN VASES AND AMPHORAE. 



I 



Cleopatra, 



69 



These people did not dread the transition we 
call death. Soon as the King came to his 
throne he began to build his tomb and the care 
given the body was because their religion taught 
that while it was undecayed the soul hovered 
about it. When the clay goes to pieces the 
soul enters some low order of animal and when 
it has made the circuit of all terrestrial and 
marine animals and all birds, it again puts on 
human shape. This circuit they said is accom- 
plished in three thousand years. The reader 
will remember that Pythagoras was converted 
to the doctrine and transplanted it into Greece, 
where it influenced the converts even to their 
abstaining from animal food. 

The inscriptions, which are the state papers 
of Egypt, throw no light on this religion; since, 
with the exception of one doubtful carving, 
thought to represent the return of a sinful soul to 
earth in the form of a pig, no hint of this belief 
has been discovered in the ancient monuments. 

Many wild and weird tales have been told of 
seeds found in the hands of embalmed Egyptians 
being sown and growing into flowers of match- 
less beauty, but with a deadly perfume which 
has destroyed the health of the wearers. It is 
said English gardeners have raised peas and 
wheat from dried grains found in the hold of 
mummy hands. I am deeply gratified to see 
the guide-books unite in testimony. No such 
gardening has been accomplished, and every such 
story is false. Notwithstanding the fact trav- 
elers buy the small samples of grain offered in 



The Repose in Egypt. 



tattered rags, by venders, as veritable corn from 
the granaries of the Pharaoh who was a dreamer 
of dreams when Joseph was prisoner in the 
dungeons of the king, and servant to the Cap- 
tain of the guard. 

The custom of burying seed grew out of the 
ancient idea that the soul carries in its hand, 
from this life, a few grains of wheat with which 
to begin anew the life in Amenti, or Paradise. 
After the spirit has raised wheat in the Fields 
of the Blest, he makes bread and offers it with 
prayer to God. 

VIII. 

TO CAIRO. 

Very pleasant was that ride to Cairo, the 
city called by Orientals the Precious Diamond 
in the handle of the green Pan of the Delta. It 
was the retreat of the Patimate Caliphs, the be- 
loved asylum of the poets, and is famed in 
flowery prose and voluptuous song. 

Our swift train appeared to glide through 
rather than break the stillness of the drowsy 
country. The mellow sunshine was like our 
Indian Summer, balmy and yellow, glorifying 
all it touched, and made less melancholy the 
squalid, filthy Arab villages, haunted by hags 
who are not witches, but wives and daughters of 
the fellaheen. Xo transfiguring power can beau- 
tify them till they are touched by the sacred 
finger of Allah, as the Arabs describe the ap- 
proach of death. The mud houses are like 



To Cairo. 



7i 



an outgrowth of Nilotic slime and ooze, and be- 
side them grow lovely acacias and mimosa or 
gum-arabic trees, in which pigeons flock and 
flutter. About the straw-heaps at the door 
chickens cackle, and dirty sheep hunt for food, 
and sore-eyed children lie basking, resembling 
torpid reptiles. 

Women work in the fields with the men, 
each wearing one loose garment. There is no 
machinery but the shadoof, like our old-fashioned 
well-sweep, the most primitive of pumps and a 
rush-basket. Swinging the water-tight basket, 
they move with machine-like precision, these 
forever oppressed Egyptians, without recollec- 
tions of a great past or ambition pointing to a 
better future. Their very souls are enslaved by 
centuries of grinding tyranny, knowing no change 
but a change of taskmasters. The locomotive 
gives them no impulses, and they do not lift 
their heads as the herald of a new civilization, a 
chariot mightier than Pharaoh's, rolls past. 
Among the low bending figures we saw the tat- 
tooed faces and painted blue lips, forbidden by 
Levitical law. In a slow, heart-broken way they 
move steadily, swinging the rush-basket in the 
hard service of the field named in Deuteronomy, 
drawing up water from the river and emptying 
it on the fields in the higher levels. Sometimes 
the passer-by may hear a dull, groaning sound 
from the unpaid toilers, a melancholy chorus 
chanted by gangs of boys and girls, degraded 
unspeakably, who are set to work together along 



72 



The Repose in Egypt. 



the Nile banks. The Arabic scholar tells us 
these are the words of the slow, sad song : 

GIRLS. 

They starve us, they starve us ! 
boys. 

They beat us, they heat us ! 

CHORUS ALL TOGETHER. 

But there's some one above, 
There's some one above, 
Who will punish them well, 
Will punish them well. 

Another burden in full chorus is . 

The chief of the village, 
The chief of the village, 
May the dogs tear him, tear him, tear 
him ! 

In the oldest of the world's illustrated histor- 
ies, on the walls of Thebes, are pictures, perfect 
as though sculptured yesterday, for which these 
waiting human machines might have served as 
models. There is little doubt that, this is the 
very same cry which went up to heaven from 
the enslaved Hebrews, groaning under their task- 
masters. An exceeding bitter cry when swelled 
in a chorus of multitudes doomed to perform 
impossibilities, gazing in despair at their uncon- 
querable work. 

There is a tomb-painting near Ghizeh supposed 
to represent the hard usage of Israelites in Egypt, 
an accurate illustration of the house of bondage. 
The features of the Jews it is impossible to mis- 
take. They are making brick, their bodies are 
splashed with clay, and their service is plainly 
exacted " with rigor." In the center of the pic- 



To Cairo. 



73 



ture sits an overseer or taskmaster, with baton 
in hand, ready to enforce obedience — an actual 
portrait of some Egyptian face, with oblique 
eyes, and narrow, receding forehead. 

As we journeyed, camels in twos and threes 
went by, their Arab drivers seated on horrible 
high-posted saddles, taking the motion of the 
brute in that tilting perch. The mangy, dreary 
creatures did not take fright at the steam- 
whistle ; they were too far gone for that. They 
only turned, and chewing the cud of nothing- 
particular, surged slowly along unmindful of our 
invasion on the sanctity of the past; and mus- 
ing, it would seem, on the hard lot of the beast 
of burden, the slave of slaves. I thought they 
had no spirit left, but when a load too heavy to 
be endured was being girded, the kneeling beasts 
gave a complaining groan most dismal to hear. 
The Scripture word " girded" first has meaning 
here. It was a new idea to see two heavy bales 
balanced, one on either side, and kept in place 
with broad bands, wound round and round the 
animal. 

" Why do they cry," I asked. 

" Because their backs are sore ; they all have 
sore backs," answered the guide, " but," he 
added, reflectively, rt they last as long as though 
their backs were not sore." 

It is not possible to write of Cairo without 
mention of the Arabian Nights. It is the beaten 
track which I have tried to avoid ; but there is 
no other way. Necessity obliges me to quote 
the words of the Caliph : " He who has not 



74 



The Repose in Egypt. 



seen Cairo has not seen the world. Its earth is 
gold, its women are bewitching and its Nile is a 
wonder." And Sultana Scheherezade praises the 
City of Pyramids : " As compared with the 
sight of this city what is the joy of setting eyes 
on your beloved ? He who has seen it will con- 
fess that there exists for the eye no higher enjoy- 
ment, and when one remembers the night on 
which the Nile comes to its height, he gives 
back the wine-cup to the bearer full, and makes 
water flow up to its source again." 

There is no more delightful memory than 
Cairo. Even the traveler who has visited the 
palaces of Europe and the splendors of Asia 
must yield to the fascination of its dim bazaars, 
and the mysterious, close-barred lattices which 
shut in the beauties of the . harem — darlings 
bought with a great price. "Western influence 
has been felt in the City of the Caliphs, and 
cheap buildings are rising among the massive 
piles of stone and marble which belong to the 
former centuries. Saracenic carvings are giving 
wav to commonplace porticos, and arm-chairs 
and carriages take the place of the divan and 
sedan chairs, made of ebony and inlaid with 
pearl, in which ladies formerly moved about. 
Houses, streets, people, are suffering a change, 
and he who seeks the picturesque, sighs over 
the fast coming innovations, the banishment of 
gay color and costume, and of the desert min- 
strels with the mournful two-stringed guitar. 

A street-car line is projected for Cairo. Ven- 
erable and historic monuments are laid low to 



To Cairo. 75 

make room for glaring hotels, and the dreadful 
costume of the Christian is adopted, instead of 
the flowing robes and soft, light fabrics suited to 
tropic heat. Comfortable, loose slippers are 
abandoned for leather shoes, and women are for- 
saking cool draperies for corsets and the many 
discomforts of Parisian toilet. It is consoling to 
learn they must keep to the veils which law 
and religion hold sacred, and which no foreign 
influence can alter. 

Go soon if you would catch the coloring of 
the Orient, the brilliant "symphonies of shades" 
which make the blood of the artist tingle as the 
divine melodies of Beethoven touch the sense 
of the musician. 

Some of these tints, in the fast colors of the 
Great Master, are unalterable. The hills of the 
Libyan desert gird the horizon and frame the 
matchless picture, and the mountain tombs of 
Ghizeh tower against the sky, blue as when Cleo- 
patra lavished her blandishments on Anthony, 
as they did when the great Eameses breathed 
the burning incense offered to him as to a god. 
They look no older now than when the first pa- 
triarch saw them as he went down into Egypt to 
sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in his 
land. Not the least charming feature of the 
landscape is the dahabeeyah, a light vessel with 
one lateen sail, peculiar to the Nile, as the gon- 
dola is to Venice and the caique to the Bos- 
phorus. 

A morbid desire for originality prevents my 
saying they skim the water like sea-gulls, speed- 



76 



The Repose in Egypt. 



ing before the north wind which blows steadily 
by day, and dropping northward with the cur- 
rent of the river at night. Away to the mystic 
regions of chimeras, dragons, flying-serpents 
they sail, and from the antique markets bring 
precious gums, ebony, sandal- wood and charcoal 
of the Numosa, cargoes of ivory, ostrich feath- 
ers, gum-arabic and slaves, the black-skinned 
tribes of the tropics, who from the beginning 
have been branded with the curse which Noah 
pronounced on the sons of Ham, hewers of wood 
and drawers of water then and now. 

Formerly the soft sand of the streets of Cairo 
gave back no sound of chariot wheel, hoof, or 
footstep ; now the paved roadway of the Muski 
is a din worthy Regent Street or Broadway. It 
has lost in dignity and quiet, but much gain is 
made, in some respects, by the improvements of 
Ismail Pasha. Instead of donkeying to Mem- 
phis, or perching on a back-breaking camel, you 
ride in an open barouche to the very foot of the 
Great Pyramid. It is a delicious drive, eleven 
miles on a raised causeway, under the shady 
acacia trees, sacred in our eyes to poetry and 
song. The highway was built for the Prince of 
Wales, according to an immemorial compliment 
in the East, which orders a new road made for a 
guest the king delights to honor. Verily, Ismail 
Pasha builded better than he knew, when he or- 
dered this for the Prince of Wales. His it is 
now. 

The Arab proverb runs, " Time mocks all, but 
the pyramids mock time." How the outer cas- 



MODE OF PLOUGHING 




EGYPTIANS HOEING. 



To Cairo. 



77 



ing of Ghizeh has been carried off to found new 
towns, and for the upbuilding of Cairo, is an old 
tale and often told. The illiterate children of 
the desert paid no heed to tablets of hewn stone 
which contained precious histories, and the con- 
queror Amrou founded the City of Victory on the 
field where the leathern tent of the commander- 
in-chief was pitched. "When he was to return to 
Alexandria, and ordered his tent to be struck for 
the march, he was told that a pair of pigeons had 
made their nest on its roof. He exclaimed, 
"God forbid that a Mohammedan should deny 
his shelter to a living being, a creature of Allah 
who had confided to the protection of his hospi- 
tality. Leave the tent standing. It is an omen 
of good." 

The pigeons remained unharmed in their nest, 
and when Amrou returned, flushed with triumph, 
from Alexandria, he found it there standing, oc- 
cupied it again, and made the spot a center for 
the new capital, Fostat, i.e. the tent. The reader 
will remember a similar story told of the Em- 
peror Charles of Spain in Flanders, immortal- 
ized, in verse by Longfellow, " Golondrina is my 
guest," the Emperor said, " let no hand molest nor 
hurt her." And when the army disbanded, the 
canvas palace was left standing for the sake of 
the swallow's nest. 



7S 



The Repose in Egypt, 



IX. 

THE RISE OF THE NILE. 

The Saracens thoroughly subjugated the Egyp- 
tians, and treated them, with more mildness than 
often falls to the portion of the vanquished. It 
is said the conquerors overran the domains of 
science as quickly as they overcame the king- 
doms of their neighbors, and two centuries after 
the conquest, the son of Haroun al-Easchid 
found, in the Valley of the Nile, the rich fruit of 
a scientific life. The Arabs dismantled Alexan- 
dria and Memphis, but they built observatories, 
and, profiting by the astrology of the Egyptians, 
studied the stars, and gave them names familiar 
now to every school-boy. And when the Caliph 
in 801 sent to Charlemagne, from Bagdad, the 
keys of our Saviour's sepulchre, as a pledge of 
esteem from the Commander of the Faithful to 
the greatest of Christian kings, it was the ming- 
ling of sound policy and delicate compliment, 
which vet marks the craft v and courteous Arab. 
The invading army found ruins so extensive and 
colossal, that the Arabic historian concludes the 
ancient Egyptians were long-lived giants, who 
were able to move tremendous blocks of stone by 
the use of ma^ic wands. 

In the year 638, Memphis was a dead city, 
infested by robbers, employed by commercial 
companies, who searched the fallen temples and 
sepulchres for hidden treasures. The great un- 



The Rise of the Nile. 



79 



derground vaults, many miles long, escaped de- 
struction, but the movable blocks of marble, the 
white walls of the fort, the granite temples of 
the gods, were quarries for the builders of the 
city, not named Cairo till two hundred years af- 
ter its foundations were laid. And thus van- 
ished Heliopolis, on the bank of the river oppo- 
site the new capital. The stones were easily 
transported when the Nile was in overflow, and 
the work was done rapidly and more carelessly 
than is usual with Arabic artisans. 

As I said, the pyramids have been quarries, 
and have not been blown in air only because 
danger to Cairo was apprehended from so great 
an explosion. 

The face of the Sphinx has been a target for 
Mamelukes through centuries. They hurl their 
spears and level their guns at "the idols," with 
infinite zest and vigor. Still do these remains of 
the Pharaohs survive, but it is only because the 
worshipers of the one God revealed by Mo- 
hammed had not the power or machinery to lay 
them low. Iconoclasm should have its limit, 
and the later Christian learns that even idols 
may have their uses. At their feet and on their 
breasts are traced hieroglyphs invaluable and 
irreplaceable if lost. 

Far up the Nile, near the last rapid, is a cur- 
ious pagan temple containing stone tablets with 
the commandments of kings, and the words of 
hymns sung to the Nile on festival nights, when 
the overflow commences. 

A massive stone table of black granite has 



8o The Repose in Egypt. 

recently been discovered, worked into the founda- 
tion of a house of Cairo. It is the record unin- 
jured of a paean devoted to the honor of Ptolemy 
Soter, and in the mosque of Amrou, most ancient 
of Egypt, are numerous pillars, supports of capi- 
tals in Greek, Eoman and Ityzantine workman- 
ship. No visitor can fail to notice the vast 
number of columns from old heathen temples 
employed in the construction of Moslem sanctu- 
aries. 

The conquerors loved Cairo always, and 
lavished untold sums on it, besides the rich 
plunder afforded by the neighboring cities. 
Amrou in his despatches described the Nile Val- 
ley as first a desert, then a sweet water lake, 
then a blooming garden ; the three gradations 
given the country by the river, without which 
there is no life. 

The night of June 17 is known as the Nioht 
of the Drop. From the kingdom of the myths, 
a traditional belief comes to our times, that 
during this night a mystic and magical drop from 
heaven falls into the Nile, and starts its rising. 
Anciently it was a tear of Isis, the beautiful god- 
dess with ambrosial locks, and it fell near her 
sacred home, the Isle of Philae. At once the 
sympathetic river began to swell, and Sirius 
looked on with a brilliance which outshone the 
sun, for the soul of that star was Isis. 

The genius or deity of the sacrecl stream was 
Hapi Mou. He is represented as a fat man, of a 
blue color, with aquatic plants for hair. The 
god had two statues at Luxor, and was employed 



THE TOMB-CHAMBER OF THE THIRD PYRAMID. 



The Rise of the Nile, 81 

in binding the thrones of the Pharaohs with the 
lotus and papyrus of Upper Egypt. The 
Greeks used to say it was easier to find a god 
than a man on the Nile banks, and we readily 
imagine idols of the beneficent deity ever present 
on the shores of Father Nilus. The water was 
so delicious that the old Sultans transported it 
to Constantinople. Persian kings carried it with 
them for their banquets, and a Eoman general 
rebuked his soldiers for demanding wine in its 
presence. 

The rise begins at Syene, and in ancient days 
the priests, in gorgeous garments, with music 
and solemn incantation chanted their hymns, 
and speeded forward the torrent rushing toward 
the thirsty sands. That solemnity was the 
grandest event of the year, and was celebrated 
with incredible pomp. A lovely virgin of noble 
birth was crowned with garlands, and thrown 
into the river, the bride of the Nile, to insure a 
plentiful inundation and generous harvest. 

The Arab conqueror abolished the heathen 
sacrifice, and the river did not rise for three 
months after the usual time of increase. The 
people were frightened, and Amrou wrote to 
Caliph Omar to tell what was done, and of the 
threatened calamity. Omar returned brief an- 
swers, expressing approbation of Amrou's action, 
and enclosing, in a letter, a note to be thrown 
into the Nile. It ran as follows : " From Abd- 
Allah, Prince of the Faithful, to the Nile of 
Egypt. If thou flowest of thine own accord, 
then cease to flow; but if it be God, the 




S2 



The Repose in Egypt, 



Almighty, who causeth thee to flow, then we 
implore God, the One, the Mighty, to let thee 
flow." Amrou obeyed the command of the 
Caliph, and lo ! the river rose sixteen cubits the 
following night. 

In Cairo the breaking of the Nile is still cele- 
brated. The dahabeeyahs are illumined with 
lanterns and dressed with flags, little boats fly 
across the twinkling waters, and the air resounds 
with melancholy hymns of women in chorus of 
song, ending in wailing anything but festal to 
our ears. In the tents on shore are dancers, 
musicians, reciters, laughter and feasting, vari- 
colored lights, and a dazzle of bright arms and 
costume. 

At midnight the men begin to work on the 
dyke, and at daybreak the Khedive and attend- 
ant officials in splendid uniforms, appear in a 
tent overlooking the embankment, and testify 
that the Kile has reached the height for bursting 
the dyke. The testimonial is forwarded to the 
Sultan. The Khedive scatters small coin in the 
shallow edge of the river, the poor dive for them 
in the mud, and evil-minded and malicious tour- 
ists say the small coin grows smaller, and fewer 
in number, every year. 

There are legends that the bride of the 
Nile is now represented by a waxen image of a 
girl, blooming and decked in bridal robes ; but I 
could find no foundation in truth for the story. 
Nor could I learn when and where it was the 
custom to seal a mummy finger in a costly casket, 



The Rise of the Nile. 



S3 



and fling it an offering to the god of the bursting 
river. 

One remnant of the obsolete ceremony survives 
in the rigging of a large boat called Ahabeh by 
the Arabs. It is painted in brightest colors, and 
illumined with flaring lamps and streamers. You 
may leave Cairo in the afternoon on this sacred 
vessel, and sail to the Isle of Ehoda (or roses), 
and from its deck watch the night-long pageant. 
In the rosy glow of morning, rockets and cannon 
and thunderous shouts of multitudes announce 
that the Nile has risen. 

At Ehoda, the traveler may see the Kilome- 
ter or measurer of the overflow — a deep well 
connected with the river by a subterranean canal, 
so that the height of the water in the well is 
precisely that of the Nile. In the centre is an 
exceedingly slender eight-sided pillar, on which 
exact markings of the rise are kept. Under 
twenty -four feet gives a scant harvest ; under 
eighteen feet means famine for thousands. The 
sixteenth cubit indicated on the Nilometer is 
called the " Sultan's water," the annual tax being 
remitted if the river fails of this height. The 
visitor may go down the steps (I did not), and 
read for himself the record, and find the water- 
level. And from this exquisite isle — ah, how 
that beautiful sight comes back to me now !— he 
has the finest view of the most imposing of 
Oriental ceremonials. A miracle-play of night 
and day, so aflame with shifting color, and alive 
with movement and resonant minstrelsy, that our 



84 The Repose in Egypt. 

wildest festivals in comparison are poor, tame 
and dull. 

Kb words of mine can give an idea of the 
Babel of language, the tumultuous rejoicing, 
always within the limits of decency and sobriety. 
Maskers in formless mantles glide like ghosts 
through the crowd, and what wild uproar when 
one is discovered through his disguise, and strug- 
gles away again to some shadowy column, which 
may screen him from the searching blaze of the 
lanterns! A sense of the superhuman comes to 
the mind of one for the first lime watching the 
swelling waters, which rise silently and surely, 
as though predestined by fate, and without rain 
or storm appear impelled by some magic under- 
swell. 

Christian and Mohammedan influences, through 
centuries, have been unable to make the Fellahs 
or peasants comprehend that the Nile is anything 
but the direct gift of God. And the workers in 
the fields give Him the glory of the indescribable 
green, and the mellow grain with fat ears, which 
repay the sower a hundred-fold. At all hours, in 
all times and places, there is this fearless recog- 
nition ; a constant reference to the presence of 
the Omnipresent, which is admitted in our secret 
hearts, but named, alas, how rarely in audible 
petition by the Christian 1 



At Heliopolis. 



85 



AT HELIOPOLIS. 

Five miles away from Cairo are the ruins of 
On, or Heliopolis, on the edge of the overflow or 
cultivable ground. Irrigation makes the black 
soil fruitful, and the water-line is the line of 
division between life and death, arid gray sand 
and velvet greenness. Above fields rich with 
corn and rice are causeways raised high over the 
level of the inundations. On one of these smooth 
roads you drive in an easy carriage, and alight 
within a large inclosure of earthen mounds spar- 
ingly cultivated with gardens. You look in a 
pool unkept and dirty — the Spring of the Sun — 
and survey the oldest of obelisks, and ponder on 
what it has seen and what it has survived. Bereft 
of its brethren, it stands alone and sorrowful, the 
solitary survivor of one hundred columns dedi- 
cated to solar worship. Older than Joseph, it is 
named by the Father of History. Plato may 
have mused in its shadow, and Pythagoras here 
may have learned the secret lore of the priest- 
hood, and Hypatia, studying the religion the 
" finger of the sun " represented, may have 
thought it ennobling as the degraded Christianity 
she saw in Alexandria. The Nile floods the 
country without hinderance, burying deeper and 
deeper the dead civilization of which the obelisk 
is the tombstone. The huge pillar is the oldest 
work in Lower Egypt, a monolith over one 



86 



The Repose in Egypt. 



hundred feet high, erected by Usertiscue I. in the 
year 2803 B. c. By the annual deposit two meters 
of earth have accumulated at its foot during the 
two thousand years since the ruin of Heliop- 
olis. 

Many a long procession of priests, prophets, 
saints, brethren, false and faithful, has passed by 
since first its shaft was lifted to the rainless blue. 
Heaps of debris mark the site of the city, in 
pagan times crowded with idols. Now there is 
no stone to point the foundation of the famous 
Egyptian University, a center of intellectual life, 
or the Temple of the Sun, a marvel of archi- 
tectural splendor. Christian churches early 
sprang up in the wastes of Egypt, founded by 
outcasts from Judea, persecuted and driven out 
by the chosen people. And not far from the 
site of Heliopolis is the village of Matarea, 
where the Holy Family rested, and for a time 
dwelt in a grove of sycamores. This circum- 
stance (I am tracking the old legends) gave the 
sycamore a peculiar and sacred interest in the 
early Christian era. TVith loving care and some 
expense the crusaders imported it into Europe, 
and, under a religious feeling, Mary Stuart 
planted one from France in her garden, the first 
one of its kind to wave its fan-like leaves in the 
pale grey mists of Scotland. 

As usual, when they halted, a miraculous 
spring appeared for the refreshment of the Holy 
Family. It still exists, under the name of the 
Fountain of Mary, and is shown in a neglected 
place, in a wild garden of oranges and lemons, 



At He Hop o lis. 



87 



inclosed by an iron railing, and surrounded with 
fragrant jessamine. Nearby is a patriarchal for- 
est son of Anak, hoary, venerable, which looks as 
though it might have upborne the weight of the 
Flood. Like the lone obelisk, it is last of its 
kindred, and is carved over with hieroglyphs, 
the gnarled and knotty trunk made a register for 
names of tourists. Tradition calls the plane- 
tree a descendant of the one that sheltered the 
Holy Family while they were fleeing before out- 
laws, possibly murderers. They hid in the hol- 
low of the riven and decaying trunk, and a 
spider wove her web across the opening, com- 
pletely veiling the fugitives under a gauzy cur- 
tain. The same tale is told of Mohammed in 
the Hegira, and of some other illustrious outcast, 
I forget whom. 

We say this is only a fable invented by super- 
stition; but we must remember the highways of 
travel are unchanged, and the well must have 
made the spot a halting-place. The miracles we 
may receive or reject. The predecessor of the 
historic tree, as is shown by actual record, died 
more than two hundred years ago. Certainty 
for two centuries this one has kept watch over 
the spring, called in poetic Arabic phrase, the 
" Bye of the Sun ; " by Christians, the "Virgin's 
Well." Aquatic plants choke the pool, and the 
feathery foliage of tamarisks is borne down by 
horny leaves and prickles of the cactus. 

After the fall of Heliopolis, during the French 
invasion, General Kleber visited, as a pilgrim, 
the Tree of the Holy Family, and wrote his 



88 



The Repose in Egypt. 



name on one of its branches, but it is overgrown 
or in some other way has disappeared. 

Whether she saw this tree or not, we know 
the tender glance of Mary fell on the same yel- 
low desert with its three sand hills, on reedy 
margin and rushing river. The divine Child 
with calm, eternal eyes looked from her shoulder 
(thus Bethlehem women still carry their babies) 
and saw the pyramids in sharp profile — mighty 
wedges, blue in the distance — mysterious, un- 
known, then as now. They are unchanged since 
the patriarch Job saw them and wrote, " There 
they all lie, the kings in their glory, each in his 
own house." 

Many have questioned how the Holy Family 
subsisted in the two years, if two years they 
were, near On, or Heliopolis. Tradition tells 
that Joseph worked at his trade — but small car- 
pentry is demanded in the mud houses of the 
poor among whom their lot was cast, and it is 
said that Mary did embroideries. Garments of 
divers colors and curious needle-work have be- 
longed ever to the Orientals. Blue and scarlet 
and the Tyrian purples, which were varied 
shades of crimson and blue, were known to the 
people called barbarian by dyers who seek in 
vain the secrets of their craft. 

There is a legend that the Virgin worked 
mummy-cloths. They are linen towels about 
the size of an ordinary bath-towel, and are dis- 
covered in catacombs fresh as though laid there 
yesterday. Every thing in Egypt is for eternity, 
and the credulous are taxed to believe that a 



At He Hop o lis. 



mummy-case has recently been opened, its ten- 
ant found rolled in linen shawls which bear the 
initials of Mary, daughter of Joachim and 
Anna. The ornamentations had been identified 
as Bethlehem work, and they are believed by 
devout souls to be the very stitches set by the 
hand of the Madonna. Would it not be a strange 
sensation to touch a fabric wrought by the 
mother of Christ? 

I think the poverty of the exiles has been ex- 
aggerated. The gifts of kings to a God were 
not trifling symbols or mere souvenirs. The 
gold of the Magian was for present extremity, 
and with the simple wants of a primitive peo- 
ple, unused to luxury, the offerings of the Wise 
Men must have lasted a long time. Slight food 
and scant raiment sufficed. Nor should we 
think that night in the khan at Bethlehem was 
a sign of extreme hardship. It was no more to 
the family of the taxpayer coming up to Jerusa- 
lem and finding no room in the inn, than a 
retreat to the hay -loft would be to our farmer's 
boys. In fact, such a resting-place is much 
more common in Judea than is generally sup- 
posed. The cave-country of Palestine is full of 
recesses for travelers, who make themselves 
comfortable with mats and blankets, every nec- 
essary for a journey, which the Oriental carries 
with him. Even when seeking permanent 
quarters the true son of the East takes his rag 
and cushion, his coffee-pot and bag of meal. In 
every robber-country men, women, children, and 
animals must for safety come within walled in- 



90 



The Repose in Egypt. 



closures. In the Kooky Mountains it is a corral 
shutting out Apaches ; in Syria, a caravanserai 
against the elder brother of the tameless Indian, 
the Bedouin of the desert. The khan where 
the Holy Family would rest in journeying was 
a hotel or inn, without landlord or landlady, 
clerk, chambermaid, or porter. It was without 
roof, without rooms, without bed or table; a 
walled stopping-place, inclosing a fountain, 
which was free to all. The camels -and donkeys 
are unloaded, and share the rest and protection 
of their masters. Bread and salt, cucumbers, 
and olives, may usually be bought, and grapes 
for the wants of the wayfarer who rejoices in 
the shade of a canvas, and lies at rest with his 
domestic animals and servants. 

Sometimes there is a division between the 
guests of the khan and the beasts, a wall a few 
feet high upholding the raised platform which 
forms the chamber of the stranger within the 
gates. Along its edge is a stone trough in which 
the cattle feed as they stand on the earth below 
the floor of the guests. Syrian women yet lay 
their children in this stone manger — a hard 
cradle without rockers — covered with folded 
sheep -skins. There the babies sleep well and 
are safe from accidents of any sort. Of course, 
when " feeding-time " comes, baby must be taken 
up to make room for creatures who are tame and 
as much at home with their masters as our dogs 
and kittens are. The tourist in Switzerland will 
remember a like communism, not attractive to 
parties accustomed to privacy and neatness. The 



At He lio polis. 



91 



second cradle of the child Christ was probably 
soft, warm sand, scooped a little below the flat 
level, and covered with cotton drapery. Thus 
Egyptian children may be seen lying asleep or 
gazing sleepily at the lace-like foliage of the rest- 
less thin-leaved acacia. 

When the sun went down, leaving a glory like 
the light beyond all lights, the splendor of the 
throne of God, perhaps, as she pressed the baby to 
her bosom, Mary thought he was one day nearer 
the awful sacrifice at Golgotha. She might have 
caught some notes of the first Christmas hymn 
sung by the heavenly host, and mingled them 
with the joyful music of her own hill-country 
while she cradled the Saviour in her arms. If 
her lot in exile seems poor and hard, it was 
softened by precious consolations, memories of 
transcendent raptures, and prophecies of the 
beatitudes yet to come. Ah ! what pictures of 
peace and holiness the masters have given of the 
lovely Boy asleep, the Virgin Mother, with blue 
veil over her fair auburn tresses, watching beside 
Him, while angels with flowing locks and wings, 
each plume the brightness of a star, put aside 
the branches and smiled down on the beings 
toward whom they were drawn by mystic kinship. 

In the security of unknown poverty in this 
dreamy Egypt, with few friends and no enemies, 
they awaited the third coming of the celestial 
visitant. "Flee into Egypt, and be thou there 
until I bring thee word," was the command. 
Thus the j^ears of their banishment wore away. 
If not in Heliopolis, where I write, near it ; they 



92 



The Repose in Egypt. 



tarried — awaiting necessarily lonely, yet the 
beautiful Child was a delight new every hour, 
even as the child of common clay is to the true 
mother ever since the first baby voice was heard 
by the outcasts from Eden, and the first mother 
cried with the thrill which comes but once, " I 
have gotten a man of the Lord." 

The stars which led the Holy Family, if we 
suppose them not miraculously led, shine down 
with a spirit-like brilliance unknown in other 
climes. Did they suggest the light, like an out- 
glancing of the all-seeing eye, which illumined 
the dingy khan at Bethlehem, and brought the 
Magi to the feet of the incarnate God ? 

In the velvet touch of Jesus's fingers did Mary 
recognize the miracle-working hand that should 
heal the sick at its touch and open the eyes of 
the blind ? and, when His hour was come, that the 
spikes of the Eoman would tear through the 
quivering flesh, and nail them to the cross? 

Of the lineage of David, she knew Moses and 
the prophets, and must have had premonition of 
the anguish and the glory of Gethsemane and 
Calvary. Within some leafy tent, if not the 
" sycamore of Jesus and Mary," then some other 
low-bending tree, she nursed her baby with 
yearning and foreshadowing of the cross. And 
she loved the Child, who grew a fair daily miracle, 
with a love which was worship and yet not idol- 
atry, and kissed in adoration the dimpled feet 
destined to tread the wine-press alone. Could 
she have known, pondering with silent, solemn 
mother-heart, that the wondrous Child was ful- 



At Helioftolis. 



93 



filling the prophecy, " Out of Egypt have I 
called my Son ! " 

It is difficult for us to realize that He whose 
kingdom is not of this world was a boy among 
other children, wiser, sweeter than they, with a 
boy's wants and temptations, but without sin. 
Did He romp and play ? Did He study in order 
to learn ? "Who may guess what intuitions shone 
in upon Him when He was subject to His par- 
ents ? There are deeper mysteries in th at divinely 
human nature than have been sounded by the 
finite mind. We are apt to forget that in His 
humanity the future Judge of quick and dead 
knew every pulse of our blood, every need of 
our bodies ; that He was tired, hungry, and 
thirsty as mortals; loved and suffered; was 
tempted at all points as we are, and had the 
same craving for sympathy. In the sorrowful 
night when He was betrayed, the loneliness of 
the forsaken man-God burst forth in the exclam- 
ation addressed to Peter and the other two who 
slept while their Lord awaited His doom : 
" What ! could ye not watch with Me one hour ? " 
And when He came the third time He said to 
them — we may imagine with what gentleness: 
" Sleep on now, and take your rest." 

I linger by the " Tree of Jesus and Mary." 
Fabulous though they be, the stories which 
festoon and entwine it are pleasant to my soul. 
I love all that gives personality to our Saviour, 
believed in by devout spirits of the mother 
Church, and not to be despised by ours. They 
blossom out of the mists and vapors of two 



94 



The Repose in Egypt. 



thousand years, phantom flowers, yet imperisha- 
ble as the fabulous amaranth and fadeless aspho- 
del. Let the pretty stories stand. We are not 
vowed to implicit faith in them, and they have 
a realism by the Virgin's Well, in this shady 
garden, in the soft Indian summer air. Golden 
grains of truth are scattered among the fables. 
One's faith is strengthened, and dreams come 
true, as they do not in the fierce light which beats 
on the New World, lying far away from the 
chosen land of types and shadows. 

XI. 

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 

When the warning was given to Joseph in a 
dream, " Take the young Child and His mother,' , 
he arose by night ; so the first feeling is, that 
the flight into Egypt was all made at night. 

Few careless readers consider the length of 
the journey, whether by the caravan route across 
the desert, taken by Abraham, nearly two thou- 
sand years before the Eoman road, or through 
the Land of the Philistines and the Plain of 
Sharon to Joppa, then skirting the coast south- 
ward. Either way is at least four hundred 
miles, and it must have consumed five or six 
weeks unless we assume that the whole passage 
was miraculous. The early Christian fathers 
taught that the fugitives started at little past 
sunset, the hour in after ages consecrated by the 
Ave Maria. To Joseph was confided the care 
of the Virgin and Child, but the mother was 



The Flight into Egypt. 95 



accustomed to the constant ministry of angels, 
who left the heights above, to have charge con- 
cerning Him on whom the salvation of the 
human race depended. She, too, mast have 
heard the whisper as the vaporous form drew 
near, "Arise, take the young Child and His 
mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there 
until I bring thee word ; for Herod will seek the 
young Child to destroy Him." 

Bethlehem was little among the thousands of 
Judah. About six miles south of Jerusalem, it 
lies east of the main road to Hebron, covering 
the upper slope and top of a narrow ridge of 
limestone. The town is built in square, solid 
houses, and close under it is the plain, smiling 
with vineyards and barley fields, where Euth 
came to glean in the early days of Israel. The 
waters go softly in the pretty brook which runs 
through it yet — a scene fair to the eye, pleasant 
to memory. There is the Field of the Shep- 
herds where angelic voices, heard but once on 
earth, sang peace and good will, and there, by 
the gate, is the well for which the captive David 
longed. 

The long, gray hill, which left no room fol 
travelers in the inn, is bare and burnt now. In 
Mary's time it was covered with the olive, al- 
ways like hoary age — the vine, emblem of 
laughing youth — the fig and the promegranate, 
overhanging green terraces, on whose summit, in 
crescent shape, lay Bethlehem the " City of 
Bread." At the foot of a neighboring hill was a 
pillar which marked the tomb of Each el, the be- 



? 6 



The Repose in Egypt, 



loved for whom Jacob served seven years, and 
they seemed unto him but a few days for the 
love he had to her. " And as for me," the 
pathos of the simple story, " I buried her 
there in the way of Ephrah, the same is Bethle- 
hem. " In our generation the tomb has been 
bought by the Kothschilds — the only shrine of 
Palestine belonging to the Hebrews. A rounded 
white dome is built over the sepulchre, and once 
a week Jews go there to bewail the desolation of 
Zion and to burn incense. Eastward the purple 
wall of Moab rises against the horizon, and the 
modern guide points out the peak where the 
hero of the Old Testament, prophet, law-giver, 
priest, went up to die. The desolate high-lands 
of Judea lie between, stretching far to the south. 
Three miles distant Mary could see a sugar-loaf 
mountain, lofty and round, with new fortifica- 
tions, within which the bloody Herod was soon 
to find his tomb. And twenty-five miles off, 
through avenues of black and gray mountains, 
shining steel-blue, lay the sea which forever 
buries the dead Cities of the Plain. 

"When the Virgin mother looked a farewell 
to old Olivet, then crowned with two great 
cedars, I wonder if she remembered the mourn- 
ing procession led by her ancestor, David, weep- 
ing over the rebellion of Absolom, as he went 
up barefooted and his head covered with, his 
mantle. Did she have premonition of the sad- 
der lament, mingled with tears of the Child at 
her bosom, to be uttered thirty years later from 
that summit, " Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! which 




THE SPHINX OF THE PYRAMIDS. 



The Flight into Egypt, 



97 



killest the prophets and stonest them that are 
sent unto thee ; how often would I have gathered 
thy children together, as a hen doth gather her 
brood under her wings, and ye would not ! " 

She could see in dazzling whiteness the pin* 
nacles of the temple. There she had consecrated 
her Son to God and His service, and the 
prophecy must have thrilled her soul — " Behold 
this Child is set for the fall and rising again of 
many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be 
spoken against." 

Encircling the city of holiness, grim and mas- 
sive towers rose high in the Syrian blue, symbols 
of the brute greatness of Eome. The portal of 
Corinthian brass, with a gilded eagle inscribed 
with the word Agrippa, gave name to a gate 
more precious in its material and make than the 
one called Beautiful. 

It is recorded that the pillars of the Temple 
vibrated like a pulse, as the Virgin passed with 
the king-like Child, and the golden gates shook 
before the awful solitude of the Holy of Holies. 
The veil of Babylonish tapestry, destined to be 
rent in twain by the tremble of the crucifixion, 
waved its blue and scarlet and purple of match- 
less beauty, while the pilgrims went out unno- 
ticed, bearing the Messiah. And while the 
world slept, the sentinels on the gates and the 
walls stood moveless — type of the sleepless, om- 
nipresent power of Imperial Borne. 

The Mother Church has enriched us with so 
many delightful traditions concerning the flight 
into Egypt, that I scarcely know which to 
7 



93 



The Repose in Egypt. 



choose, or how to reduce thein to brief space 
without robbing them of grace and color. 

Among the dangers and perplexities by the 
way, the Virgin was always serene and fearless. 
Once the Holy Family entered an untrodden 
wilderness of trees, and would have been lost, 
but for the pioneer angel who marched ahead, 
with a star in his hand for a torch. The birds 
sang for them with unaccustomed sweetness, the 
lions left their lairs, the foxes their holes, and 
bears and panthers came tamely to the forest 
edge to watch the innocent strangers, and none 
did them any harm. In the depths of this 
forest all the trees bowed in devotion and obei- 
sance to the Infant God. Only the aspen, in her 
exceeding pride and stubbornness, refused to 
confess him and stood upright. Then the Christ 
pronounced a curse against her, as he afterward 
cursed the barren fig-tree, and, at the words, 
uttered in his mother's arms, the aspen began to 
tremble through every leaf, and has not ceased 
to tremble to this day. 

This forest wilderness was wide, dark and full 
of robber paths, and, of all its trees the palms 
were most intelligent and reverent. They bent 
to make a bower, a mystical enclosure round the 
hunted wanderers, and leaned down for them to 
gather luscious clusters of dates, which had hung 
high in air. Most honored of trees, for they 
were strewn before the Saviour on his triumphal 
entry into the Holy City, and are borne in the 
hands of the Redeemed in the New Jerusalem. 
A fountain gushed out of the thirsty ground, and a 



The Flight into Egypt 



99 



babbling stream called to the travelers, Come 
and drink of me. Seraphs smoothed their bed 
of moss and flowers, and watched with folded 
hands and over-shadowing wings while the dove- 
like infant slept. 

One story runs that they never could have 
found their way across the desert but for an acci- 
dent, which proved a signal blessing. At even- 
tide, after a long, hot, dusty day, they overtook 
a miserable slave, perishing in the way, aban- 
doned by some caravan. They gave her of their 
scant stores, and then she lay down with her 
unknown friends to sleep on the flat sand. In 
their slumber one of the sleepless angels on 
watch blew in the sand, and commanded it to 
open. At once a fountain leaped up. Another 
ministering spirit brought a slip of acacia and 
bade it grow, leave, and blossom. Another 
brought a fig and a willow, fragrant balsam, and 
almonds, rose and white, and the lesser angels 
sowed the border of the fountain with seed of 
fine grass, velvety moss, and the royal white 
lily, sacred to Mary. Each tree concealed the 
nest of a bird ; and where they had gone to rest 
on the bare earth, they woke in the dewy morn- 
ing to bird-song and wind-song, palm fruit, and 
all the scents and sounds of a blooming oasis. 

The wandering tribes gave the spring the 
name " Well of Beward," and to this day it re- 
mains, and no traveler drinks there without a 
prayer of thankfulness and a blessing. The 
slave-girl, by signs, made the Virgin understand 
that, in a city four days 7 march southward, 



lOO 



The Repose in Egypt. 



were women wearing veils like hers. For the 
favor shown the Jewish race by the Ptolemies, 
the Nile valley was peopled with Jews, whom 
Herod feared, while he hated ; there the fugitives 
would be safe among the Israelites, whose women 
were veiled like Mary. Led by the slave, they 
approached the boundary of Egypt, and a tree 
there worshiped as a deity bowed itself to the 
earth, and the idols shook and fell, with their 
faces in the dust, broken-hearted, acknowledging 
the Master, who came to enforce the command- 
ment, " Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me." 

When the humble wayfarers entered Heliopo- 
lis, strange portents drove the priests in affright 
to consulting the stars and the augurs ; but the 
oracles were dumb. No one could imagine the 
baby in the arms of the mother of sixteen years 
was God incarnate, the son of the Eternal Father. 
A few banished Hebrews received the Holy 
Family, and conducted them to the Temple of 
Jehovah, built on the plan of the one on Mount 
Moriah. A lamp of pure gold was suspended 
from the ceiling, instead of the seven-branched 
candlestick before the Holy of Holies, and on 
the dome of the sanctuary was an immense mir- 
ror of polished steel, which reflected the rays of 
the luminaries of Heaven. With what strange 
feeling they must have entered it in the land of 
illusion and silence! A majestic mimosa beside 
the Temple bowed in salaam to the Divine 
Child, and the idols on a pagan altar, tottered, 
groaned, and, with lamentations, fell crashing to 



The Flight into Egypt, lot 

the ground. The slave-girl remained the grate- 
ful servant of Mary while they abode in Heliop- 
olis, and dwelt in a mohair tent, after the man- 
ner of her tribe, close to the habitation of the 
exiles.. 

There is a belief among pious souls that the 
journey to Egypt was miraculously shortened. 
Time and space were compressed, and on descend- 
ing the craggy mountain paths and rugged de- 
files of Syria, the Holy Family entered a delec- 
table plain. It was starred with lilies, cool with 
streams whose borders were of water-roses, and 
trees bearing all manner of fruits. Into this 
charming landscape the old painters have poured 
their choicest colors. Holy men have given 
us scenes like revelations from Heaven — ideas 
which do not enter the mind of the every-day 
reader running through the record in the Gos- 
pels, which is hackneyed to us from childhood. 

Those devout artists, with no conscious blas- 
phemy, pictured on canvas the face which no 
man can see and live ; and must have wept as 
they wrought before easels which they never ap- 
proached till first purified by prayer. Eaphael 
denied that of his hundred Madonnas any are 
portraits, but all varied copies, from no earthly 
face, of the sinless ideal mirrored in his own 
soul. In his divinest picture, the Mother, the 
Bride of Heaven, enters the place prepared for 
her ; a tent of leafage in the midst of the pomp 
of summer. The palm branches bend as though 
whispering high and holy secrets to the Chosen 
of God, Blessed among Women. Wishing to 



102 



The Repose in Egypt, 



reach a cluster of cherries, the friendly tree 
shakes its branches, and the delicious fruit is 
showered into her lap. The angelic guard bring 
celestial food and minister to her as they after- 
ward ministered to her Son on the Mount of 
Temptation. The Virgin appears in close red 
tunic, with long sleeves, over it a robe or mantle 
like those worn to this day by Bethlehem vir- 
gins. Says one quaint chronicler : " Invisible 
hands strewed the turf with beds of rose leaves 
and pitched the nightly tent.'' Perhaps he only 
meant the blue and glistening canopy overhead, 
stretched from the ends of the earth to curtain a 
sleeping world. 

The artists have been sorely puzzled what to 
do with Joseph. He is always represented as a 
plain old man with staff and wallet. Usually he 
is saddling the ass, and — dare I write ? — looking 
about as stupid. Once he stands behind the 
trunk of a tree, reading something which looks 
like a photograph album, while the angels crown 
the mother and flutter in the air about her. 
Again he lies asleep on his mantle, instead of 
appearing the active, ever-watchful guardian of 
the young Child and his Mother. In one lovely 
picture he helps her over a mountain torrent on 
stepping-stones ; and in another moonlit scene 
he watches while the Mother and Child sleep in 
an airy boat steered by an angel and rowed by 
winged boatmen, the crescent moon for a head- 
light. 

I recall one picture in which the Flight into 
Egypt is the subject of the tenderest and most 



The Flight into Egypt, 103 

delicate treatment. The Virgin and Child are 
seated in a flowery meadow of varied landscape, 
and rings of baby cherubs, holding hands, go 
dancing round them. There is nothing coarse 
or familiar in their presence ; they are pure as 
morning dreams, and full of Ely si an grace. It 
appears a sort of rhythmic dance, and you have 
the impression that it is to no earthly music, but 
timed to flutings of angels' " golden lutes and silver 
clarions clear' 7 , sounded by unseen musicians 
close at hand. Other angel babies are hanging 
garlands on the neck of a snow-white lamb, and 
are floating gayly, adoring the divine Child, 
whom they recognize in his twofold nature as 
akin to themselves. Balmy airs stir the lovely 
winged creatures, and soft, lithe limbs keep time 
to the glad harping of the harpers with their 
harps. 

It is the most triumphant thing I have seen 
on canvas. I wish I could remember the name 
of the artist, whose fine, forcible hand fashioned 
those airy shapes, so the reader may find it, some 
happy morning, in the Museum at Naples. The 
tranquil face of the Madonna wears a rapt, ex- 
alted expression, as becomes the priestess and 
prophetess, and the painter has followed the re- 
ceived account given of the Virgin in the fourth 
century, by Epiphanius, derived by him from 
the Fathers. " She was of middle stature, her 
face oval and of an olive tint, her hair a pale 
brown, her complexion fair as wheat." The re- 
joicing gladness of the scene makes it peculiar 
among Eiposas. The blissful cherubs in rings, 



104 



The Repose in Egypt. 



like rosy garlands of flowers, fairly glide before 
your eyes, singing as they sang that first Christ- 
mas Eve: "I bring you good tidings of great 
joy, which shall be to all people." 

The day we were there a young peasant 
woman — evidently a sorrowing mother — stood 
before the picture, and returned, time after time, 
to gaze her fill. In some inexpressible way the 
Mother of Christ answered the yearning of the 
sad heart for the divinest of earthly loves, per- 
fected in Mary, sweetest of all the sweet mothers 
in Heaven. 

Of the many pretty legends which start into 
memory as I write, there is one probably known 
to the reader through a familiar engraving. It 
runs somewhat on this wise : 

One night two wanderers from the roving 
tribes of the desert encamped in the lonesome 
waste near the deserted tombs of old Memphis. 
While folding their turbans about their heads, 
when the swift twilight had passed, they noticed 
a singular brilliancy in the direction of the 
" stone idol," as they name the Sphinx ; a pale 
light, in tone and tint like the ivory-white of 
moonbeams. The night was soundless; still as 
before the winds were made. There was no moon, 
and the weird spectral glimmer was terrible to 
the sight. They thought it must be some foul 
demon or djinn, or a ghoul searching the graves 
of the long-forgotten dead. To their imagina- 
tion the sepulchers were peopled with fearful 
specters. Awe-struck and perplexed, they could 
not sleep. Often as they closed their eyelids the 



The Flight into Egypt. lo$ 

awakening luster beamed in on them, not by 
flashes, but steadily shining as the front of Alde- 
baran or the starry eyes of the seven sisters. 
Vainly they touched their talismans and called 
on the name of the Most High, and wildly did 
they lament haying strayed so far from the track 
of the caravans. " Why tarry here ? " said the 
bravest, "If this thing be evil, prayer will scare 
it away; if good, we must claim its blessing.' 7 

They rose and tremblingly groped through 
the vast charnel house, once the imperial city of 
Egypt. Often they stumbled over fragments of 
temples and palaces, yet constantly were drawn 
by resistless force toward the fixed white wonder, 
which illumined a great space with its mar- 
velous splendor. As they neared the gigantic 
monster, where, between the paws of the lion- 
body, there was anciently a pagan altar of sacri- 
fice, there appeared a young child and his mother 
sleeping, with no other canopy than the shelter- 
ing stone, which forms the breast of the Sun- 
God, the type of all kings to its worshipers. 
" The heathen have lighted their fires again, and 
have offered these two in sacrifice ! " exclaimed 
the foremost. " Not so," said the other. "It is 
a Jewish woman in the dress of her people, and 
a baby. They have a wonderful brightness, 
like the angels on the ladder of light which 
Jacob saw. It is a miracle. How else could 
they reach that high place ? They have flown 
up from the earth or down from Heaven." 
"Awful is this spot," murmured the more timid 
Ishmaelite. " Let us make haste and return to 



io6 The Repose in Egypt. 

our camels. If we stay, some dreadful thing 
may happen to us." Then they turned their 
backs on the mystical radiance, and as they 
toiled through the sand, strange music filled the 
stirless solitude, and phantom bells chimed, like 
far-off echoes from some viewless temple beyond 
the stars. 

They told the wondrous tale ; but those wild 
sons of the Sahara never knew they had been 
permitted to behold the aureole above the head 
of the Madonna and the Blessed Eecleemer, and 
to hear the midnight Gloria of the invisible 
watchers who never slumber nor sleep. 

XII. 

THE RETURN OF THE HOLY CARPET. 

From Cairo the yearly caravan goes out with, 
the sacred carpet forwarded annually by the 
Sultan to ' ; dress" the Black Stone in the mosque 
at Mecca. And after a year it is returned to the 
same place. Imposing ceremonies accompany 
the arrival and departure, and in 1882 was wit- 
nessed the singular spectacle of British troops 
saluting the holy carpet. There is no act of 
more solemn devotion to Islam than this obei- 
sance ; and it is a politic stroke to parade victori- 
ous troops in honor of the true faith, as else- 
where the red-coats have presented arms before 
the Hindu gods of India. These " idolatrous 
acts," as the English press has named them, pro- 
voked much hostile criticism, and the senior 
army chaplains presented a petition to the gen- 



The Return of the Holy Carpet. 107 

eral commanding the army in Egypt, that the 
men might be released from such a duty. Sir 
Garnet Wolseley replied, in curt terms, that, as 
commander-in-chief in Egypt, he issued orders 
for the public weal. The representations of 
Col. G. W. Knox, on behalf of the Scots Guards, 
were more successful, and the presence of that 
regiment was excused. Debates ran high on 
the subject, and the apology made in Parliament 
for such concessions to Moslem faith was, (1) 
that the religion of Mohammed was not an idol- 
atrous one, and (2) that the ceremony was politi- 
cal and not devotional ; but the assertion failed 
to satisfy the public conscience. An empty 
litter represented the Sultan at the time, and it 
was urged the salute was intended for it. The 
enthusiasm at Cairo was hardly for the imperial 
litter, and the religious bearing of the rite could 
not be denied. The salute was not to Ottoman 
sovereignty, but to the representation of an act 
of faith in the Mohammedan religion. 

The ceremony of receiving the holy carpet on 
its return from Mecca takes place in front of the 
palace of Abdin, and you may see it some day, 
a marvelous pageant of color and an exhibition 
of fervor such as is never known in the cold 
races of the North and West. You remember 
how the Highlanders to the sound of bagpipes, 
marched up the heights and possessed the cita- 
del of Cairo. You know the earlier historic 
associations of the place, how Mehemet Ali, 
having learned that the Mamelukes plotted his 
destruction, determined to save himself by de- 



io8 The Repose in Egypt, 

stroying them. His son, Toossoom Pasha, 
commanded the army which was to march into 
Arabia, and the august ceremony of investiture 
was fixed for the 1st of March, 1811. 

All the principal officers attended at the cita- 
del, and the Mamelukes came on invitation of 
the bland and polished Turk. As the bej^s pre- 
sented themselves where the Viceroy was seated 
among the Turkish chiefs, they were received 
with Oriental politeness, which is unfailing, and 
when the hour passed and they mounted their 
horses to return to Cairo they discovered the 
citadel gates were closed. The keepers were 
not beside them, no sentinel was in sight. Could 
there be treachery after an audience conducted 
with such exquisite urbanity? A volley of 
musketry poured a sheet of flame in answer to 
the dreadful suspicions. Some galloped back to 
the Divan, hoping to reach the presence of the 
Pasha; the flying herds in affright sought the 
various gates. But their return had been care- 
fully prepared for. As they neared the closed 
doors a well-aimed fire prostrated horse and 
rider, and the most desperate valor could not 
avail against stone-walls. The palace area was 
strewn with, corpses and quivering bodies, and 
fugitives were picked off' by the keen rifles of 
Albanian sharp-shooters. Emin Bey, a chief 
who had the faculty of quick thought in the 
face of danger, remembered that at a certain 
place near the wall a mound of wastage had 
accumulated. He forced his horse to leap from 
the parapet, about one hundred feet high at that 



The Return of the Holy Carpet. 109 

point, and saved from the general doom by the 
loss of his horse, he fled to the camp of some 
r oldiers on the plain of Bussateen, and was there 
concealed till he had an opportunity for escape 
to Constantinople. 

The wounded were slain without mercy, about 
410 within the walls of the citadel, where traces 
of blood are still shown. The most partial of 
historians admit that this bloody and treacher- 
ous act was necessary to the peace of Egypt. 
Mehemet Ali knew the time was come to say, 
" Your life or mine," and acted according to the 
received custom of the Turk. He seems to 
have been humane in his life, and this day of 
death was but a self-defense. The Mamelukes 
were like the Janissaries of Constantinople, who 
turned their camp-kettles upside down once too 
often for the patience of Mahmood. As con- 
stant a plague to the Empire as the Praetorian 
Guards of Eome, demanding the more, as more 
and greater privileges were conceded to them ; 
and the wonder is, that they were trapped and 
outdone in perfidy by the wary Mehemet Ali. 

The view from the scene of the tragedy is 
beautiful exceedingly. Looking from that 
height a rich haze floats above the Mokateen 
hills, and a tremulous opaline tinting softens the 
rough sides of the Pyramids, the sea-like level 
of the desert, and the Lybian chain of mountain 
rock. The Nile appears a golden thread strung 
with palms and feathery foliage. It is bordered 
by lattices light as lace-work, the ornamental 
screens for the loveliest palaces. 



1 [O 



The Repose in Egypt. 



Not the least of the many beauties of Sara- 
cenic arclr lecture is the Cairene minaret, laid in 
alternate courses of red and yellow brick, and 
crowned with delicate stone finials pointing sky- 
ward. And who may describe the mosque of 
Mehemet Ali, whose inner walls are of glisten- 
ing alabaster, with a sheen like satin. There 
birds nest in the globes of the great chandeliers, 
and the visitor ponders on the strength of the 
one-man power even in these latter days. 

In the very heart of old Cairo lies, like an 
oasis, a famous park of several hundred acres, 
planted with citron, acacia-trees, and tropic 
plants blooming among tangled vines. It is the 
daily and nightly resort of natives and foreign- 
ers, being the open-air theater, the cafe, the 
promenade, the music-hall, the trysting-spot ; 
and there, when the sun goes down, " all Africa 
dances." 

The Grande Place Mehemet Ali is a vast open 
space below the citadel, and the royal palace of 
Abdin stands close under the high walls of de- 
fense. Toward that center, as by irresistible 
force, swept a current of humanity, to be found 
nowhere else in the world, one bright December 
morning, five years and more ago. It was a gala 
day, and the city was en fete. Business was sus- 
pended, for messengers out of the desert brought 
word days before that the pilgrims were return- 
ing from Mecca. The city of victory was in 
high wrought expectation. The greatest event 
of the year was about to take place, and in 
eager expectation a mixed multitude, in vari- 



The Return of the Holy Carpet. ill 

colored costumes, set steadily toward the citadel. 

The Turk is the most tolerant of mortals. 
Had you started to that festival on all fours, in 
sheep-skin or in buffalo robes, or had you ap- 
peared stark naked, like the Fakirs or saints 
who dwell in caves, he would merely, say it is 
the custom of their country, and would pass by 
with lofty indifference, without a second glance. 
Every shade of complexion was there, from the 
jet-black Nubian to the fairest Circassian. Every 
known race was represented except the North 
American Indian. Conspicuous in the crowd 
were women in the graceful silken ferregi, or 
sweeping robe like our ulster; sometimes em- 
broidered with silks or bead- work of pearls from 
the Caspian. Here and there a veil of scarlet 
gauze betrayed the Arabian bride; the small 
hands were jeweled, and the almond-shaped eyes 
strikingly beautiful. " Paradise eyes," as the 
Faithful call them, are full of witchery, and 
their mild languor can change instantly to a 
fierce brightness like flame. 

Despite all said about the degradation of 
Eastern women, they wear an expression of 
serenity as though living in measureless con- 
tent; not weighted with cares like the rushing 
tourist from the North. Theirs is not the radi- 
ant loveliness of the vivacious races, but their 
rare smiles have a magic influence beaming 
through their white veils, and the indolent lift- 
ing of the eyelids has a fine charm for lovers of 
the beautiful. The day of which I write found 
the Zuleikas and Zobeidas — veiled beauties of 



112 



The Repose in Egypt. 



the harems — not so placid as nsual. One emo- 
tion dominated all minor feeling. The air was 
filled with excitement, subtle magnetisms pos- 
sessed the multitude, and the contagion was re- 
sistless. The eunuchs in attendance on the great 
ladies strutted with their usual peacock gait, and 
held high their threatening whips. The proces- 
sion of Hadjis or pilgrims was to enter the Bab- 
el-Nazr, or " Gate of Victory,'' which opens on 
the Boulak road. They were led by Sheik El 
Islam, the spiritual chief of the pilgrimage, com- 
mander of the guard of two hundred soldiers 
who had watched with sleepless vigilance the 
sacred carpet which had lain on the Black Stone 
one year. 

We heard a wild blare of trumpets, a beating 
of fish-skin drums and cymbals, the clangor of 
barbaric instruments shrill and sharp. Strange 
tremors and thrills ran through the masses of 
humanity. Low, suppressed murmurs were ex- 
changed without the turning of a glance from 
the direction of the Imperial Gate. Before the 
French invasion and the so-called reform of 
Mahmood, the uniforms of the Turkish army 
were in harmony with the climate and men ; now 
the stiff costume, much like our own soldiers 
wear, is unsuitecl to wearers and their surround- 
ings. 

The red fez is the last portion of the Moslem 
dress worn by all Turkish subjects, and law for- 
bids its change or banishment. Still there was 
rich and exquisite variety of color in the crowd, 
and the Arnouts or Albanian soldiers wear the 



The Return of the Holy Carpet. 113 

most picturesque dress for men — a jacket of pale 
blue, embroidered with gold, white linen kilted 
skirt, high-topped boots, spurs, swords, daggers, 
and jewel-hilted pistols. They tell us that the 
SJcypetars, as they call themselves, are more to 
be dreaded than Turk or Egyptian, but we do 
not like to believe it. We accept the descend- 
ants of the ancient Illyrians as representatives 
of the symmetrical people who made all fine art 
before their time an experiment, all that has 
come after them an imitation. 

Troops of cavalry, columns of infantry, and 
batteries of Krupp's guns were in place. The 
glinting of the various arms dazzled the sight, 
and the wind at noon scorched with flaming 
breath. Those uniforms and arms must be bur- 
densome, and the fez is no protection from heat 
or dust. The beys and pasha rode splendid 
mares of the small compact Arabian breeds. 
They had scarlet velvet saddle-cloths, gilt trap- 
pings, and jeweled and fringed head-stalls. The 
crowd surged and parted as a carriage came 
whirling with some magnate late at the show, 
and closed in behind it like waves in the wake 
of a vessel. As anciently, runners clear the way 
before Egyptian nobles. Trained to rapid step 
together, they fly before the horses of the char- 
iots with loud cries of " Oaf Oa!" — a warning 
and a threat in Arabic. Their dress is like that 
of our circus boys, with plenty of spangles and 
gilt embroidery, and tall white wands in their 
hands, borne steadily perpendicular, give an air 
of authority to their movement. It rather de- 



H4 



The Repose in Egypt. 



tracted from this brave parade to learn that 
groups of runners are stationed ready for hire at 
the city gates. The stranger may have them, 
and enjoy the same style which the proud pashas 
have. 

As the day advanced the interest grew more 
intense and the crowd more densely packed. 
For half a mile round the castle walls and over 
the Grande Place Mehemet Ali human beings 
were wedged together, a living mass, not less 
than 60,000 souls. There was much patience 
and good humor, and a pressure toward the 
stately palace Abdin, where the Khedive was to 
stand. The foot-soldiers rested on their arms. 
There was a sudden movement ; a bugle sounded 
shrill and sweet. The Khedive was coming. A 
squad of Nubian cavalry, gorgeous in arms and 
equipment, dashed ahead, clearing the way for 
the viceroy* "What are they shouting?" we 
inquired of the interpreter. "It is Arabic. 
1 Allah be praised, the carpet has come back in 
safety! ' " Thousands on thousands took up the 
words, which sounded like an exultant war-cry, 
" Allah be praised ; " and all along the line sharp, 
fine voices bore the mighty refrain. The car- 
riage was a marvel of splendor, lined with green 
— the color of the Prophet — drawn by four 
powerful Eussian horses white as snow, wearing 
jet-black harness mounted with gold. The 
head- stalls were burnished brass, and a flying 
head-gear of bright ribbons tossed and streamed 
on high above the red fezes of the multi- 
tude, 



The Return of the Holy Carpet. It § 

The guard closed round the cortege, bowing 
low in salaam, as the viceroy and his ministers 
left the carriage and took their stand on the pal- 
ace stairs. Tewfik Pasha is a handsome man, 
and would be marked in an assembly of merj 
anywhere in the world. He has clear olive skin, 
full black beard, which could not conceal the ex- 
pression of the mouth, that tells without speech 
of a life of enjoyment after the manner of pleas- 
ure-loving Paris, where he was educated. His 
eyes, long, rather than round, have the peculiar 
opaque whiteness of Orientals, and are full of 
expression and intelligence. He wore a superb 
decoration — the Sultan's Imperial Order — and his 
general appearance was commanding and king- 
like among a group of men strong as lions. 

The heat increased, the people grew more ex- 
cited and anxious. Mounted orderlies galloped 
hither and thither bearing orders. Is the Khed- 
ive impatient? The holy men lie waits for have 
marched in blinding dust and life- withering heat 
sixty-seven days from the' Hill of Arafat, bearing 
the burden hallowed by contact with the shrine 
of shrines. They have done gallant deeds in the 
desert among the wild hordes of the tent who 
will not endure city walls. Their valor will be 
sung by the Arabic Rawis, or troubadours, and 
chanted round the evening fires through gene- 
rations yet to live. Surely the Viceroy, whose 
life is a long pleasure-party, who steps from vel- 
vet carpets to cushioned carriages, can afford to 
wait one day in the year. 

It is not long now; the camels are coming, the 



Il6 The Repose in Egypt, 

caravan is under the archway of the Bab-el- 
Nazr. We see the head of the long procession. 
A band of Hadjis, dusty and travel- worn, bearing 
banners with strange devices, and chanting texts 
from the Koran. Back of them troops, infantry, 
artillery, cavalry, and again a long array of der- 
vishes with flags floating on high and bands of 
music, the dull, weird, funeral beat of muffled 
drums. The men in advance have been purified 
by prayer and absolved from sin by penances. 
Grim fanatics, with wild, haggard faces, some 
half-naked, some in tattered sheep-skins. Their 
matted, unkempt locks, sun-scorched and faded, 
make them notable even in this motley assem- 
blage. They are the dwellers in caves, Santons, 
or saints. They look like insane wretches with- 
out asylum or friends. There are peals of can- 
non, shrieks of women under the wraith-like 
veils, then silence deep as death falls on the mul- 
titude. The excitement is extreme, though sup- 
pressed. No one abuses his neighbor for being 
too late; no one is poked in the ribs for pressing 
forward to catch the first sight of the sacred 
pageant. And if there was oath or angry ges- 
ture we did not know it. The sacred camel 
paused under the arched gateway. He was 
white as milk, one of the noblest of his kind, 
waving his neck with undulating movement as 
though in recognition of the homage accorded 
him in the consecrated procession. He was 
made gallant with lordly trappings; a sort 
of turret on his back was overspread with the 



The Return of the Holy Carpet. 117 

hallowed carpet and the holy palms — the Mah- 
mal. 

A hollow square of Turkish cavalrymen, two 
hundred in all, surrounded the camel. To them 
had been given the mighty trust of escorting the 
outgoing carpet to Mecca, and bringing back the 
year-old one to Cairo. They were also charged 
with the defense of pilgrims journeying along 
the route whose tide has ebbed and flowed more 
than twelve hundred years, and with money for 
quieting Bedouins by the way. The desert-born 
are robbers by profession, and among the laments 
for the eulogies of the dead the singers chant he 
was a successful robber. " What do the pil- 
grims prepare for the journey ? " asked the inter- 
preter of a wiry Arab murmuring sympathetic- 
ally with the emaciated figures more dead than 
alive. " Nothing," answered the swart Arabian. 
" They lean upon Allah." Do we believe him ? 
Not quite, for the Hadji considers the earth is 
the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and might 
makes right the world over, in the desert or the 
plain. 

Again the Hadjis, with starvation in their 
eyes, howl and shout. Their filthy rags scarce 
cover their nakedness, but they are ecstatic in 
bliss, their demeanor is a delirium of delight. 
The tumult is almost overpowering even to us 
who are mere spectators of the strange drama. 
" What are the wretches saying ? v asked an 
Englishman, near us, of his dragoman. "They 
are telling of Mecca, the mystic bride, veiled as 
a virgin, out in the wilderness where there is 



Ii8 The Repose in Egypt. 

nothing but God. Of the musky loam of Para- 
dise, where they shall rest on green pillows in 
the golden pleasure-fields kept for the faithful. 
They have left their sins with the stones on 
Mount Arafat, and now, when they die, Lord 
Mohammed will open the guarded gate and lead 
them up to dwell by the great white throne." 
" Bosh ! " said the Englishman, peevishly. 

But we did not say "Bosh," we were deeply 
moved. To one used to the scoffs of the dis- 
ciples of reason and science, the fervor and faith 
of the Moslem had a certain pathos. " Para- 
dise ! Paradise ! " they shouted along the line, and 
far as the outermost circles the choral note was 
taken up, echoed and re-echoed in the triumph- 
ant acclaim and frantic gesticulation. Never, 
never, have I seen anything among Christians 
like the devotion of the followers of the 
Prophet. 

The Sheik El Islam is a man of high and 
princely presence, mounted that day on a gallant 
steed of the breed of the Neyd. His horse's 
pedigree is carefully kept, as the Jews keep the 
records of their tribes. And the documents 
which he hoards, in proof, are written and sealed 
by sheiks in the highest authority, and locked 
in strong chests. The wild tribes call his steed 
a " wind-drinker," and the minstrels chant how 
he flings his feet to the breeze and plays with 
skulls as with balls. Thus mounted any man is 
a chief in the desert. He may be a brandisher 
of spears, a cleaver of heads, who can hurl 
heroes from their saddles like the descent of des- 



The Return of the Holy Carpet. \\% 

tiny, and make lions quake with fear. Though 
rhapsodists had never sung his prowess, the 
Sheik El Islam would be recognized as a king 
of men among gentle and courtly embassadors 
and crown-princes of Europe. His guardians of 
the holy carpet appeared the worse for the hard 
journey, but right soldierly yet. Unsubdued by 
thirst and exposure, they were true to their com- 
mission and ready to do and die for it. The 
tapestry, spread out like a canopy, was resplen- 
dent with gold, and glowing with crimson — a 
gorgeous fabric delighting the eyes of the faith- 
ful. 

Cheers, yells, shrieks, the wildest uproar, 
greeted its appearance ; the guard could not 
ward off the crowd. They burst the lines and 
grasped the Kiswal — not to tear it, or mar its 
beauty, but to kiss it, to love it, as the children 
say, with an ecstasy of delight and admiration 
known only to Orientals. The royal dromedary 
alone seemed unmoved by the sounds which 
stirred horses and mules. The transient storm 
passed; the soldiers reformed rapidly, and with 
perfect precision, after the break, and advanced 
slowly to the steps of the Palace of Abdin. The 
Khedive straightened himself — the final, the 
supreme moment had come. A silence hushed 
the mob, which fell back for the stately animal 
to pass. The officer of the guard — a splendid 
looking soldier — bows low ; the camel is turned 
round three times ; the bridle handed to the Vice- 
roy, who reverently receives it. The mocking 
insouciance of the Parisian-educated Turk gives 



120 



The Repose in Egypt. 



place to a solemn sense of the momentous cere- 
monial. The mission has been accomplished, 
the holy carpet is delivered from Mecca. 

When Islam was richer, the Kisical was 
destroyed to save it from profanation ; but in 
later times the Sultan has ordered it to be sold, 
and the proceeds to be distributed among the 
poor who haunt the many mosques of Cairo. It 
is valued — I do not know how truly — at £5,000 
sterling. Sometimes the pilgrimage is made by 
sea as far as Jeddo, but the more devout prefer 
the land journey — the desert track where the 
sun-heat is fiercest and suffering the most 
extreme. Long as I remember anything I shall 
remember those half-crazy devotees, wild with 
fasting and excitement, yet exalted above meas- 
ure in their own eyes and the esteem of their 
comrades by the Meccan pilgrimage. 

XIII. 

THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA. 

The Arabic word Hagg is used to express 
aspiration, and among Moslems the noble title of 
Hadji, or Pilgrim, is not to be bought with gold or 
precious stones or compassed by intrigue. Nor 
is that noblest name for any man to be won on 
the field of battle. The rank must be earned by 
devotions on the sacred spots where the Prophet 
(exalted be his name!) stood so long in prayer 
that his face began to shine. He has declared 
that the one who patiently endures the heat of 



.The Pilgrimage to Mecca, 12 1 

Mecca and the cold of Medina merits reward in 
tfie highest heaven. 

Going on pilgrimage is a concession to feeling 
^hich lies deep among the many mysteries of 
the human heart. The most thoughtless and 
worldly, who holds in keeping a sentiment of 
loyalty for any object beloved or sanctified, can 
understand the strange, gloomy fascination which 
this act of penance has for the Mohammedans. 
We call it excess of devotion, fanaticism. 
Eather let it be written they are believers who 
live their religion, ready to die in its defense, 
and holding him deserving of death who forsakes 
it. 

India is chief among the nations who practice 
pilgrimage. In that seat of awful images, swarm- 
ing with human life, come devotees from dim 
and unknown regions, seeking far countries for 
holy shrines. Still are Hindoos wanderers to- 
ward Egypt, to the flaming steppes of Thibet 
and the snowy peaks of the Cacausus. My 
readers will remember how the Athenian phi- 
losophers visited Alexandria, and the Jews an- 
nually flocked to Jerusalem till the city lived on 
the vast numbers of pilgrims. Old Olivet was 
then crowded with tents, and booths were erected 
on housetops to lodge the overflow of visitors. 
They marched with hymns and with banners 
and entered the gates to the joyful sound of flutes 
and the psalm : " I was glad when they said to 
me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Our 
feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. 77 
Tartars, Mongols, Buddhists have their holy 



til The Repose in Egypt. 

places or Lamaserais, and for eighteen centuries 
what thousands of Christians have made high 
sacrifice to enjoy one view of Mount Zion, and 
to kneel at the stone which, tradition says, cov- 
ers the rock-hewn sepulcher wherein no man lay 
till Christ. As the captive Daniel prayed with 
window open toward the Holy City, the Moslem 
kneels with face toward the sacred city of his 
adoration. 

In the heart of the desert Mecca lies spotless 
as a bride, veiled as a pure virgin, undefiled by 
glance of Giaour, unpolluted by touch of unbe- 
lieving Jew. 

With reverential awe the Hadji ponders the 
one hundred thousand mercies which daily de- 
scend on the Kaaba. There is not a doubt to 
darken his faith. He knows neither variable- 
ness nor shadow of turning. His fixedness of 
purpose, unswerving and unchanging, is nearest 
the eternal sameness of the one God of his wor- 
ship. Sneers and scoffs of aliens to the true faith 
pass him by as the idlest breeze which flutters 
the fringes of his Jcufiyeh. Well may our mis- 
sionaries write, Christianity makes no more im- 
pression on Islamism than the winds of the des- 
ert make on Mount Sinai. The immovable 
fatalist has no concern for the creeds of other 
peoples. In 1882 the Sultan of Turkey said to 
a party of Americans, with the high behest of 
one who is both Pope and Emperor : 11 1 do not 
fear your Bible any more than you fear the 
Koran." 

What to the pilgrim is the scorn of the bias- 



The Pilgrimage to Mecca, 



123 



phemer ? Is it not written by the servant of 
Him who spread the earth with carpets of flow- 
ers and drew shady trees from dead ground that 
they who die on pilgrimage are taken up by 
swift-winged camels to the golden pleasure fields 
kept for the faithful? There they shall rest on 
green pillows beside the happy river and bask 
in the light which shines from the great whites 
throne. Fifty thousand years before the crea- 
tion the one God determined and registered every 
event, past, present and to come, in the Book of 
Destiny. Among the many wonders on its 
leaves it was written Mohammed should be the 
first and most august of prophets. In the Day 
of Judgment the elect will fearlessly range under 
the green banner of Him who surely was not 
playing the hypocrite when in dying hours He 
calmly spoke of Paradise assured and his fellow- 
citizens on high. 

The tribes of the desert do not strive to rend 
the veil which Allah, the All- Wise, has hung 
over the face of the unknown. They patiently 
bide their hour, knowing that in the good time 
decreed the summons will find them waiting 
in sure hope and perfect trust. The tradition 
runs that Mecca was a holy place before Sirius 
was created, therefore should the mightiest yield 
it homage. Om-te-Kora ("Mother of Cities 77 ) 
was known to Ptolemy as Macorabia, and its 
grand mosque, capable of holding 35,000 per- 
sons, is on the site of a heathen temple, which 
in the times of ignorance, before the coming of 
Mohammed, contained 365 idols, one for each 



124 The Repose in Egypt, 

day of tlie year. The prophet we call False, by 
Europe named the Impostor, overthrew the 
stones of the desert, hewn into gods, and shat- 
tered them to atoms, only saying: "There is no 
God but God ; and Mohammed is His prophet." 

The sacred city has passed through many 
changes, and at present is directly dependent on 
the Sultan. It is strangely destitute of trees and 
verdure of every sort. The falling off in pil- 
grimage has reduced it from 100,000 to 40,000 
inhabitants. Besides the mosque there is no 
building of any importance. The narrow valley, 
circled by bald, bleak hills and arid plains, 
haunts of thirst and starvation, is a great center 
in the minds of one-third of the human race ; 
revered as the holy of holies by forty genera- 
tions. They say who love it, Mecca is the capi- 
tal of the world, the center of the universe, and 
he who fails to reach it once in holy pilgrimage, 
might as well die a Jew or a Christian. 

It was a shrine for pilgrimage long before the 
advent of Mohammed. After fruitless attempts 
to abolish the rite, which possibly had its start 
in the roving propensity of the Nomads, he was 
compelled to yield to immemorial custom and 
confirm it, taking care to annul its idolatry, for 
the father of the faithful was an iconoclast and 
a hater of idols. One of the latest acts of his 
life was to lead 40,000 pilgrims to the shrines of 
Mecca. It is said the priests who minister there 
number many thousands. The ceremonies pre- 
scribed for to-day are probably mixed with 
formulas come down from the ancient Sabean 



The Pilgrimage to Mecca. 125 

worship, and are too many to be recorded here. 
The most important are seven times compassing 
the Kaaba, or House of Allah, seven times 
treading the stone, worn smooth as glass by 
reverent feet of the faithful. According to the 
legends, the earliest worshiper here was the first 
man. After his banishment from Eden thither 
he came, repentant, overwhelmed by the burden 
of sin, sorrowing most of all that he no longer 
heard the prayers of the angels. Ministering 
spirits heard his cry and, touched by his woe, 
let down from heaven to cover his defenseless 
head a tent with pillars of jasper and ruby roof. 
At the same time dropped from regions celestial 
the wondrous Black Stone, now set in the north- 
eastern corner forming the angle of the oblong 
building within the grand mosque. This stone 
of veneration, called the right hand of God on 
earth, was once (in the centuries numbered only 
in heaven) a jacinth pure as pearl, glistening as 
the snow of Mount Ararat. Beholding the sin- 
laden souls of humanity, it has shed so many 
silent tears as to become quite black. To press 
the fevered lip and sun-scorched hand to this 
miracle stone is to purchase exemption from the 
hell described in one of the three Suras of Mo- 
hammed, well named the Terrific. 

The Kaaba is deeply worn with the kisses 
and touches of millions of lips and hands, through 
the passing generations. The sentient stone, 
which can hear and understand and remember, 
will appear at the Day of Judgment and be a 
swift witness for all who have laid hand upon it. 



126 



The Repose in Egypt, 



The mythic tale of its change of color and its 
appearance after a thunder-storm are too well 
known to need repetition. The venturesome 
Englishmen who entered Mecca in disguise at 
the peril of life say it is a common aerolite with 
admixture of nickel and iron, which, in hun- 
dreds of years, may have darkened on the sur- 
face. The adored relic is banded with a massive 
arch of gold and silver gilt; prayer may be made 
in any direction facing it; the Kibleh, the center 
of the universe. And here is the prayer whis- 
pered with forehead in the dust in front of the 
Black Stone: "There is no God but God alone, 
and His servant is victorious. There is no God 
but God, wdthout sharer. His is the kingdom. 
To Him be praise and over all things He is 
Omnipotent." 

The greater the hardship of the pilgrim the 
richer will be his reward, and at this shrine must 
he pray for quick and dead, the wife as well as 
the husband. And angels of Paradise stretch out 
their arms to anoint Him as He kneels there. 

In the Beit Allah, or House of God, the fam- 
ily of Mohammed had for generations been the 
hereditary guardians, and the fane was a veri- 
table Pantheon of the Orient. Strange to tell, 
he found there a statue of Abraham, Friend of 
Guests, and stranger yet, a statue of the Madonna 
with the Divine Child in her arms. 

You remember Paul preached in Arabia, and 
the Prophet must have heard some hint of the 
Babe of Bethlehem, the anguish and the glory 
of Calvary. He doubtless knew something of 



The Pilgrimage to Mecca. 



127 



the Hebrews, how they became a nation of free- 
men from a rabble of slaves, and how their 
inspired Lawgiver set up the Tabernacle in the 
wilderness, and curtained it with purple and 
blue, scarlet and fine linen. In prehistoric times 
there was a famous temple in Mecca, and it is 
recorded its door-veil of silk or linen was offered 
by the King of the Homerites 700 hundred years 
before Mohammed. 

Thus is the Holy of Holies, the most sacred 
place of Islam, veiled from profane and vulgar 
eyes. 

Quaint and curious are the rites enjoined by 
the Prophet. Seven times must the disciple 
walk round the central mosque, seven times kiss 
the Black Stone at the corner, and drink of the 
blackish water of Zem-zem, the fountain which 
sprang up for the outcast Hagar. To the be- 
liever one draught of the miracle spring insures 
the diamond cup of immortality. This done, he 
must bury the parings of his nails and the cut- 
tings of his hair in consecrated ground, with the 
prayer appointed : " Allah, this my forelock is 
in Thy hand ; then grant me for every hair a 
light on Eesurrection Day, by Thy mercy, 
most merciful of the merciful." 



128 



The Repose in Egypt. 



XIV. 

MECCA, THE SACKED CITY. 

When Burton, in disguise of an Arab, en- 
tered the House of Allah, at Mecca, he found it 
empty as the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem when 
profaned by the tread of the victorious Pompey. 
The building has been destroyed by fire and 
other forces, and rebuilt ten times. Its first plan 
was made by angelic architects, of what material 
we do not know. In 1627 it was built as it 
now appears, with 554 pillars of gray Mecca 
stone. The floods of previous years had thrown 
down three sides, and the fourth was removed 
after the priests decided that mortals might law- 
fully remove part of the sacred stucture without 
charge of sacrilege and infidelity. 

The present door was brought from Constan- 
tinople in the year 1633, and is of silver, bur- 
nished with gilt. Every night before it are 
ranged lighted wax candles and perfume-pans, 
filled with musk and burning aloe- wood. The 
drippings of the wax and the ashes of the wood, 
with dust from the hallowed threshold, are col- 
lected by devotees and rubbed on their fore- 
heads as preventives of sickness; and under 
such treatment invalids regain strength. It is 
the proud boast of the faithful that at no hour, day 
or night, throughout the year, is the Kaaba to be 
seen without its worshipers. 

A crowd of idlers, or as we might call them, 



Mecca, the Sacred City, 



loafers, hang about the mosque; conspicuous 
among them eighty eunuchs, who are in charge 
of the sanctuary, the mystic bride veiled from 
the gaze of the vulgar. 

All pilgrims do not enter the Holy of Holies, 
which is a plain cubical building of stone and 
aloe- wood, perhaps because of the obligations 
the act imposes. Who steps within the hal- 
lowed precinct must never again walk bare- 
footed, nor tell lies, and he must take up lire 
with his fingers. There is an old, old Oriental 
myth, that the Israelites who settled at Mecca 
connected the primitive pagan temple with the 
Hebrew faith, and the laws of Moses were there 
expounded. 

The veil now curtaining the shrine is of bril- 
liant black, in sharp contrast with the zone or 
golden band running round the upper portion of 
the building, and the golden face-veil (Burka, or 
Door Curtain) which are of dazzling bright- 
ness. The Prophet preferred a Kiswal (or cov- 
ering) of fine Yemen cloth, paid for from the 
public treasury. When it had served its time 
and was to be removed, Ayesha, the beautiful 
wife, directed it to be sold and the profit divided 
among the poor. 

The idea about the consecrated drapery was to 
bury the inestimable relic, that it might not be 
worn by the impure of heart. At this age the 
Meccans sell it, but the money is not distributed, 
as the mother of the Moslems directed. The 
officers of the mosque keep the proceeds. A 
jacket of the stuff* makes the wearer invul- 
9 



130 The Repose in Egypt. 

nerable in battle, and scraps of it are presents fit 
for princes and high dignitaries. A small strip 
is a precious Koran mark, cherished as a souve- 
nir, and kissed in a passion of adoration when 
first grasped by the eager hand of the waiting 
pilgrim. Various Kaliphs have changed its 
fashion; in the twelfth century it was of black 
silk, renewed yearly by the Kaliph of Bagdad. 

Again we read it was of fine linen, changed 
every year, the old covering being distributed in 
shreds among the pilgrims as antidotes to 
poison and every sort of unhappiness. Some- 
times it was of brocade, and in the ninth cen- 
tury the dress was changed twice a year, then 
every two months, and the honor of supplying 
it passed alternately from Bagdad to Egypt 
and Yemen. TThen the Holy Land fell under 
the power of the Osmanli, Sultan Selim ordered 
the Kiswal to be black ; later it was a fine Ara- 
bian cloak, and then green and gold, the colors 
of the prophet. 

The privilege of making the holy drapery 
is now a hereditary honor, in the keeping of 
owners of a cotten factory in Cairo. It is of red 
silk and cotton mixed and is lined with white 
muslin. The seams are hidden by a broad band 
of gold. It is said that formerly the whole 
Koran was interwoven there. Xowit is inscribed: 
" Verily, the first of houses, founded for man- 
kind to worship in is that Bakkah, blessed and 
a direction to all creatures." Under this appears 
the throne verselet and titles of the reigning Sul- 
tan. 



Mecca, the Sacred City. 131 

Here are a few of his titles : " The Sultan of 
Sultans, Emperor of Emperors, Brother of the 
Sun, Shadow of God upon Earth, Dispensor of 
Crowns to those who sit upon Thrones, Sovereign 
of the three great cities — Constantinople, the pearl 
of two seas, Broussa, and Damascus, which is 
the scent of Paradise, and of Egypt, which is 
the rarity of the age — King of kings, Com- 
mander of the Faithful, whose army is the Asy- 
lum of Victory, at the foot of whose throne is 
Justice and the Refuge of the World." These 
lines are of gold worked into red silk,, like the 
face veil or door curtain, and this is the hanging 
which, in the sacred month of Ramazan, rises 
and falls with the waving wings of the heavenly 
host, hovering unseen about the mosque. 

The huge silver-gilt padlock of the Kaaba is 
revered, and in the eyes of the devotee almost 
potent as the key of Paradise. Its hereditary 
guardians are of the proudest families of Islam, 
the sangre azul of Mecca. The cover of the key 
is of silk striped red, black and green. Em- 
broidered with gold letters on it are the Bismil- 
lah (name of God), the name of the reigning 
Sultan, and " this is the Bag of the Key of the 
Holy Kaaba." 

Let us speak of pilgrim rites with respect. 
The earnestness of the profession lends dignity 
to the cause, and it is intolerant to condemn any 
feeling that is genuine. 

The well Zem-zem is in the court about the 
mosque, the open space called the Harem. The 
word known to us as a lock-up for women, in 



132 The Repose in Egypt, 

general sense, means any spot peculiarly conse- 
crated and set apart, a delicate and beautiful 
meaning to the Oriental. Beside the spring the 
kneeling pilgrim repeats this touching prayer 
appointed: u O Allah, shadow me in Thy 
shadow on that day when there is no shade but 
Thy shadow, and cause me to drink from the cup 
of Thy prophet Mohammed, (may Allah, bless 
and preserve him,) that pleasant draught, after 
which there is no thirst to all eternity."' 

If overcome by heat on the way from the holy 
spring to Mt. Arafat, three miles distant, the de- 
votee dies apparently without pain, falling as 
though shot through the heart, and after a brief 
spasm the body is still as marble — the usual 
symptoms of sun-stroke, by the pilgrim travel- 
ing under his vow regarded as a touch from the 
finger of Allah. 

On the great day after the assembling of pil- 
grims, when the sermon is preached on Mt. Ar- 
afat, the priests say the number of faithful there 
are past counting and not to be remembered. If 
less than 600,000 mortals stand on the hill to 
hear the sermon, angels descend to complete the 
number. There is such a falling off* in pilgrimage 
that some years myriads of spirits in human 
form are obliged to come down in order to make 
up the mystic multitude. The change is not 
through lack of piety or of inexorable con- 
stancy, but because of the excessive poverty of 
Islam. 

The privations of the pilgrims are unspeaka- 
ble. To die by the way may come as an acci- 



Mecca , the Sacred City. 



133 



dent, but such martyrdom is not sought except 
by the reckless, almost insane devotees of India, 
making expiation for sins which, though scarlet, 
are thus made white as snow. Ample time does 
that journey give for reflection and repentance; 
all sins may thus be wiped away; they will 
never find the pilgrim out. Those I happened 
to see were mostly from Bussia, and wretched 
beyond the reach of words to tell. Worn with 
life-withering marches in haggard lands full of 
wild beasts. Emaciated by hunger and thirst, 
without beauty or sanctity were my pilgrims, 
yet not without a certain dignity, the result of 
inflexible resolve and self-abnegation. 

The Oriental, indifferent in all else, is stern 
and steadfast in his religion. The belief in an 
overruling Deity who can do no wrong is a 
steady guiding light which none may say is not 
an outshining of the true one. Immovable fatal- 
ism sustains its believers in the charges thrust 
upon them. Unto every man, they say, is ap- 
pointed a time to die. Though he live in lofty 
towers, his fate must overtake him. Only God 
knoweth the place in which he shall die ; but 
we do know the angel Israfil, the black-winged 
messenger of death, has the most melodious 
voice of all created things, and that the faithful 
are predestined to Paradise. 

Lofty presences, high over-shadowing wings 
attend the wayfarer as he marches in the foot- 
prints of Abraham, the friend of Allah. Why 
should we smile at his fond illusions any more 



134 The Repose in Egypt. 

than at the belief of the prince of poets and ot 
dreamers, who sang : 

11 Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, "both when we wake and when we sleep— 

The untamable races, where the old blood- 
feuds still ruie, are the better for the teachings 
of the Prophet. He made a fierce onslaught on 
paganism, and it was a great advance to lift his 
people out of the vilest fetishism. This morn- 
ing when the sun gilds the exquisite domes of 
Damascus, of Cairo, City of Victory, and of 
Constantinople, the voice of the Muezzin pro- 
claims from thousands of minarets the unity of 
Grod in the five words embodying the creed ol 
Islam. It is a solemn rebuke to the prayerless 
Christian, rushing to business without a thought 
of thanksgiving or praise, or any recognition of 
his dependence on a higher power than him- 
self. 

The holy hill Arafat or " Mount of Mercy " 
owes its name to a pretty legend which runs 
somewhat as follows : — 

When our first parents lost their high estate 
they fell from heaven like falling stars, without 
sound or farewell, through the infinite illu- 
mined spaces, through darkness and chaos, 
through eternities of twilights, among systems 
of worlds, constellations, things unspeakably 
glorious. Solemn and immutable the decree by 
which was heaven lost, and to suffer theic only 
heritage they fell on this dim spot which men 
call earth. Adam on Ceylon, Eve on Arafat, 
which overlooks Mecca. Resolving with high 



Mecca, the Sacred City, 



*35 



unquenchable purpose to seek his wife, beloved 
alike in sinless bliss and sinning misery, Adam 
began a journey to which the world owes its 
appearance. Where he set his foot, which was 
by no means a small one, a town was founded ; 
the intervals between strides will always remain 
country. Two hundred years he wandered 
among the thorns and thistles which his trans- 
gression had brought on the peaceful, pleasant 
earth. Among sharp peaks and deadly Saharas 
he was led by Gabriel, the messenger- angel with 
starry eyes and rainbow wings, to the height 
Where our common mother wailed with strong 
crying and tears for the only created being who 
could share her sorrow and comprehend her 
craving for the forbidden wisdom. Isolated and 
despairing, she called his name without ceasing. 
Adam heard the voice of his wife, he flew to 
her, and their meeting gave the name Arafat, 
or recognition, to the mountain. Upon the 
highest point the glorious archangel erected a 
place of prayer, and in the warm valley below 
the reunited pair dwelt in peace till death 
dropped the viewless veil of Paradise, and let 
them in to enjoy its delights forever. 



1 3 6 



The Repose in Egypt. 



XV. 

PILGRIMAGE. 

In old times, it is said that caravans threaded 
the desert like strings of jewels on a tawny 
background. In the distance the} 7 appeared 
movelesss as ropes of bright dyes ; and of all 
that have traversed the route the Damascus 
train was the richest. Under the green banner 
of the Prophet, kings and princes set out in 
howdahs, hung with scarlet and purple, jeweled 
fringes and feathered streamers. Pennons flut- 
tered high in air, and the tall spears of the 
desert chiefs were tufted with fluttering ribbons. 

Those were the days of the picturesque arms 
now found in museums and treasuries ; priceless, 
for they cannot be reproduced — those ancient 
corselets like glittering scales, and swords like 
Excalibar. Go to the Imperial Treasury of Old 
Stamboul, and see them ; the jewels inlaid in 
cross-bows and scimiters, the dagger-handles of 
solid emerald, sword-hilts crusted with gems, 
the profuse and extravagant ornament which 
recalls Aladdin's enchanted cavern, and Sinbad's 
Valley of Diamonds. Then the horses were 
" wind-drinkers," who flung their feet to the 
breeze, and sped like the breath of the storm- 
fiend, and horse and rider seemed one. Huge 
white dromedaries jingled their bells with pride 
equal to their master's, litters draperied with 
costly stuffs were slung between mules and 



Pilgrimage. 



camels, and the commoner animals of the rabble 
made a picture to stir the dullest imagination. 
The camp was lively as the march. Towns of 
tents sprung up in an hour. The gilt-topped 
pavilions of the nobles were lined with shawls, 
and the luxurious harem was always on the 
right. The heroes wore vestures of silks and 
cloth of gold, fabrics of Yemen and of Bosra, 
tissues from Cairo and from Damascus, the 
" Eye of the East." Over all, highest in the 
eternal blue, were flung the sacred banners of 
green, the standards of the Prophet. 

The famishing pilgrim of the nineteenth cen- 
tury loves to chant the lost glories of Islam, 
when the emperor of emperors, Caliph Haroun- 
Al-Raschid, and his wife trod on flowery carpets 
of Schiraz and Khorassan, all the way from 
Bagdad to Mecca, the shrine of shrines. As 
starving men talk of feasts of fat things, so the 
wretched beggar, his eyes yellow with hunger, 
drones his recitative about the primal splendors 
of the founders of the faith. The snows of 
Siberia and the burning sands of Africa, floods 
and famine, cannot turn the pilgrim from his 
inflexible course, nor cool the fervor of his 
enthusiasm. About him are hovering troops of 
angels, and implicit belief in charms and amulets, 
as defenses against Djinn and Afreet, belongs alike 
to high and low. Eeposing by oases, grave and 
reverential men discourse of the supernatural, 
and are the ready slaves of its fascinations. The 
evil-eye is an omnipresent terror, the "fire in 
the eye, 77 for which the best antidote is to burn 



138 



The Repose in Egypt. 



alum while reciting the Koran. Cowrv shells 
and turquoises are potent against this spell ; 
but the mysteries of the unknown are best dis- 
pelled by prayer to the Most Merciful, Most 
Compassionate. 

We call these weird fancies, superstitions born 
of fastings and mental derangement. The man 
who carries a buckeye in his pocket, he who 
will not sail on Friday, who trembles at the 
deathlike number thirteen at table, is unhappy 
over a broken looking-glass, and prefers the 
moon o>ver his right shoulder, need not sneer at 
the Oriental. 

Untold thousands of low mounds mark the 
caravan routes — the graves of devotees who per- 
ished for the faith ; and skeletons of dromedaries 
whiten in the sun, their flesh devoured by vul- 
ture and jackal. Wolves and hyenas prowl 
down from the mountains after nightfall, and 
make real the hideous Arabian stories of ghouls 
who fatten on the flesh of the dead. For more 
than thirteen centuries the desert track to Mecca 
has been the highway of death. Close beside 
the living line marches the specter-caravan, in- 
numerable, invisible. Phantom riders on spec- 
tral steeds press close to the affrighted pilgrim, 
and ghostly garments touch the trembler as they 
rustle past. 

On the Night of Grace, when the angel Gabriel 
brought to the Prophet the silver roll on which 
the Koran was written, there is a general upris- 
ing of the holy dead. Corpses open their e} r es, 
stir their stiffened limbs, and throw off their 



Pilgrimage, 



139 



grave-clothes. Clouded with misty veils and 
wraithlike raiment, they make the journey to 
Mecca and fly back to their graves by daybreak. 
For in all countries of the world is accepted the 
legend that ghosts cannot walk abroad after cock- 
crowing. 

The holy city of the Mohammedan is the 
chosen house of cholera and plague. From its 
center radiate, in every direction, pestilences 
bearing death by contagion to remotest bounds 
of Christendom. In the face of horrors glaring 
at the pilgrims, with terrors more dreaded than 
battle or shipwreck, the shrines are visited. 
Phantoms are realities to them, and their convic- 
tions are deep as their heart-blood. Why should 
we call it all a delusion and a snare ? 

Devout Christians have trod with naked feet, 
torn and bleeding, the sharp stones of Bethlehem, 
and the hills which trembled and quaked under 
the darkness of Calvary. To visit the spot 
where the Saviour of the world cried, " It is fin- 
ished," has been a longing and a desire with mul- 
titudes who die without the sight; and soldiers 
of many creeds have battled for possession of 
the sepulcher of Christ. It is an established 
historic fact that, of all the thousands of thou- 
sands who made the pilgrimage to the Holy 
Land before the days of the Crusades, there is 
not recorded one act of wrong committed on the 
way, though powerful knights and robber-barons 
made the pilgrimage with full forces. Many 
marched with hands stained by crimes to us in- 
credible, too hideous to be recounted. When 



140 The Repose in Egypt, 

the Bed Cross was unfurled above the Tower of 
David by Godfrey de Bouillon, the bravest war- 
riors fell on each other's necks and wept for joy. 
Though the Crusaders boasted of having rode in 
Saracen blood to their horses' knees, yet they 
marched barefooted and bareheaded, with stream- 
ing eyes and folded hands, to the hill Calvary, 
and chanted their Psalms in the Church of the 
Holy Sepulcher. Valor and devotion, prayers 
and tears, have hallowed its stone floor ; and who 
does not thrill in the dim, reverential light of 
the lamps surrounding the tomb of Christ? 
There, every hour, weeping women and adoring 
men, foot- worn and exhausted, sink down in sup- 
plication and confession, thus hoping to make 
less dreary the spot where they are to lay their 
tired hearts when their throbbings are stilled 
forever. A continuous living stream of believ- 
ers sets toward Jerusalem to-day, and the stones 
are kissed in an ineffable rapture of worship. 
So it has been for centuries. 

The inventions of the Moslem are not more 
absurd than the multiplied relics of the True 
Cross, nor is the adored shred of the Kiswal, 
laid in the Koran as a book-mark, a more foolish 
relic than Veronica's handkerchief, or the wed- 
ding-ring of the Virgin Mary in a church at 
Perugia. There is no imposture given in the 
name of Mohammed equal to the fearful jugglery 
of the Greek with "the Holy Fire," in the 
Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The high cere- 
monial begins with the day of the resurrection 
of Christ. Said the dignified and courteous gov- 



Pilgrimage. 



141 



ernor of Jerusalem to the writer, "Easter morn- 
ing I march a whole company of soldiers into 
the church, to keep you Christians from beating 
each other's brains out with the candlesticks be- 
fore the altar." We bowed and blushed in 
answer, for we could think of nothing to say. 

Yes, Christians fight each other and the Jew 
at the tomb of the Prince of Peace. The placid, 
decorous Turk looks on with neither smile nor 
sneer, and in his smooth, patient way murmurs, 
" How these Nazarenes love ! " Grave satire 
from the religionist to whom the Christian sects 
appeal for defense against each other ! There is 
no real toleration in the East except among the 
Turks. Supreme in authority, they practice the 
supremest liberality. The passionate grief of 
the Jew at his wailing-place, the various forms 
of conflicting sects in their chapels, are protected 
by the Mohammedan; and happy is it for us 
that the ruling power is of this mind ! 

By a strange doom, which may well lead the 
fatalist to read in it the fiat of destiny, the 
shrines of the two great religions of the world 
have been controlled by the scimiter more than 
a thousand years. It holds the birthplace of 
both. 



142 



The Repose in Egy 



XVI. 

THE KEP0SE. 

In the river Nile, it matters little where, is a 
long, narrow island, shaped like an Indian canoe, 
widest at the center, sharply tapering at the 
ends. It was once the resting-place of a deity ; 
the All-powerful who ruled the annual over- 
flow of the river, securing fertility to the land. 
There is a fable that his body was buried be- 
neath the turbid stream beside this island, and 
once a year his soul revisits it, rising and troub- 
ling the waters till they pass their banks and in- 
sure abundant harvests. 

In the center, holding their pristine, exquisite 
grace, amid the desolation of unremembered 
centuries, are the remains of an ancient temple 
which was dedicated to one of the many gods 
of Egypt. Some majestic and graceful woman, 
some terrible avenging king, mortal yet divine, 
— who knows his name and titles may tell. The 
forgotten architect had for his model in carving 
the delicate columns the stein of the lotus. The 
flower served for shaping the capital; it was 
peculiar to Egypt, and the emblem of purity, 
fertility, and sumptuous state. The white lily 
Ave call lotus grew in bounteous profusion here 
of old, and though botanists declare it has disap- 
peared, a plant very like its picture floats in the 
friendly river of the Land of the Pharaohs. 

Palms outlined sharply against the ethereal 



The Repose. 



143 



azure, waved like beckoning hands as we neared 
the shore. A few gum-arabic and acacia- trees 
straggle about the walls of the temple. Patches 
of strange vegetation, and a papyrus-jungle keep 
a strip on the main land green and fresh. When 
the old deities, whose stony eyes stare blindly 
out of the statues on the banks, hovered about 
the place it must have been a very Eden. Now 
it is beautiful even in decreptitude and death. 

It lay so lone, so dim, so dreamlike, that, as 
our little boat approached, we with one voice 
agreed this is the spot where we may forget the 
world. The historian brought his cane down on 
the sand which subdued its emphasis, exclaim- 
ing with mock-heroic gesture, " Eomans, plant 
your standards, this is the best place to stay in. 
Yet," he added reflectively, with a diminution 
of enthusiasm, "we are so cut oft* from all else 
we may be like the two Italian prisoners con- 
fined in one cell. The first year they talked up 
all they knew, the second was a year of silence, 
the third they asked to be separated. I cannot 
imagine our talking six months, but it is an in- 
teresting experiment, as philosophers say, and 
we may never have another chance to come so 
near Nirvana. As to tiring of each other, we 
made that test of friendship long ago, none will 
shrink from the trial." 

About two hundred yards from the landing 
was our camp, in the center of a group of palms, 
four in number. It is the magic numeral to the 
Moslem, as seven is to the Hebrew. They were 
planted in the form of a diamond, and, recurring 



144 



The Repose in Egypt, 



to Scott's delicious romance, we named the en- 
closure, " The Diamond of the Desert." We en- 
tered the enchanted lines and established peace- 
able and undisputed sway. There were two 
black tents under the feathery fans of green, one 
for the ladies, one for the gentlemen. A cooking- 
lodge was made of rice-straw laid on transverse 
beams which rested on forked poles; the ser- 
vants slept under the open sky. The speed and 
noiselessness with which tents are pitched are 
surprising. Our two men bearing poles on their 
shoulders were quick in this work as they were 
slow at all else. Lo ! they uprose, " black but 
comely," the tents of Kedar like the curtains 
Solomon hung for the daughter of Egypt. 

Achmet was man-in-waiting. Hassan was 
the cook. The former was a pleasant-faced 
boy of nineteen. He had the Oriental love of 
high color which blossomed out in a gorgeous 
turban adorned with a limp tassel of dull 
gilt, pendant over the left ear. He wore a 
jacket of scarlet with badly tarnished embroid- 
ery, and baggy blue trousers. A variegated 
sash of many colors held in place a dagger 
with sheath inlaid with turquoise and coral, 
and the crooked scimetar of Yemen. Achmet 
had a glittering eye not unlike a blackbird's, a 
keen, sharp glance, delicate hands and (must I 
tell it ?) a row of crisp black curls stiffly fringing 
his turban. These descendants of Ishmael have 
high notions of rank and family, chiefs and 
tribes. He boasted pure Arabic blood, but the 
stiffness of that wiry fringe set me to thinking 



The Repose. 145 

that Ethiopia borders Egypt ; and, plainly speak- 
ing, such as Achmet would in the best — or 
worst ? — days of slavery, have been held in the 
United States of America at a high price for 
body servants. 

Like a friendly hand stretched out from our 
native land, the American flag floated over the 
largest tent. I hold up the loose flapping cur- 
tain of the bower I've shaded for thee. Entrez. 
No lodge with leaky roof suggesting hardship 
and exposure. The dark shadow was refreshing 
to strained and fevered eyes, the luxurious apart- 
ment — for such it seemed — was carpeted with 
over-lapping rugs laid by the unerring instinct 
for color which distinguishes Orientals. 

A table in the center held a virgin's lamp, and 
copper box of matches, a tiny bell and brass 
waiter polished like a metal mirror. Against 
the center-post hung saddle-bags of gay em 
broidery ready for duty as pockets. A divan, 
the low, broad seat serving as bed at night, was 
cushioned and made nice with pillows of striped 
cotton. The tent-cloth rolled up two feet from 
the ground to let the wind flit through ; two 
trunks, made gorgeous with arabesque covers, 
challenged our admiration ; and when the festal 
Achmet bowed himself in, bearing four thimble- 
fuls of coffee in their filagree stands, could any- 
thing more delightful be imagined ? 

As we sipped the rich, strong Mocha he, apol- 
ogetically, and with many repetitions in the 
worst of English, stepped to the rear, and 
returned with his comrade, Hassan. The 

19 



140 The Repose in Egypt, 

latter was not trained to reticence, and in 
spite of crushing signs and frowns which fell 
harmlessly from their mark, as soon as his in- 
troduction was given, he with much gesture and 
fierce rolling of the eyes, swore by the soul of 
his father and the bones of his grandfather, and 
by the four archangels nearest the throne he 
would live for us and die for us. The sun in his 
march across the blue desert of air looked on no 
men like the two he had the honor to serve. 
The two who in their own country stood on the 
right hand of the King of America. Let any 
robber dare to molest them, and he would tear 
out the robber's eyes, dash his teeth down the 
miscreant's throat, break his legs, rip up his 
body, and give his flesh to the fowls of the air, 
the eagle and the vulture. 

The better bred Achmet tried to break in on 
the swelling elocution, as well try to stop the 
the recitative of the book-agent. He swore to 
defend the camp from all enemies whatsoever, by 
the God who created the heavens and the earth, 
by the Prophet Mohammed, by the seven varia- 
tions of the Koran, by the one hundred and 
twenty-four prophets, by the soul of his grand- 
father, by the soul of his father, by his sons and 
by his sword. Did he fail, then strike off his 
head and plant it on the top of the highest min- 
aret in the City of Victory. 

This fervid burst of devotion touched us to 
the very core of our hearts, and we refused to be- 
lieve the quiet remark of Antiquary, as the two 



The Repose. 



H7 



comrades disappeared holding hands : " The men 
would run like sheep at the first alarm." 

We had entered the shady tent with, a sense 
of restfulness most grateful to one ready to ex- 
claim with Portia, " My little body is weary of 
this great world." Roughing it in camp was an 
expression foreign to our life there. There was 
no care of any sort, all so smooth at every turn 
that content should reign supreme. Our wor- 
shiping slave Hassan, and the elegant and po- 
lite Achmet had served American princes before, 
and well knew that dwellers in tabernacles on 
the Nile do not live on a view, which one must 
have the jeweled words of Gautier to describe, 
or must write of in color, as the Greeks wrote 
music. Nor yet can they live on Arabian Nights ; 
(observe the pun if you please !) 

Full well that Son of the Desert knew they 
require plenty of food, sesame- cakes, lamb, dates, 
pistachio-nuts, and eggs, always eggs. 

At once we admitted, to our inmost confidence, 
the rhetorical cook who was burning to court 
death for our sakes, We had heard, and cred- 
ited without question, many tales of Arab fidel- 
ity; were nurtured on them, so to speak, in 
childhood; and the historian tells that in Ara- 
bian villages theft is unknown. If any valuable 
is lost in the road it lies there, every passer-by 
avoiding to step on it. If not claimed by sun- 
set, it is then picked up, by the proper authority, 
and hung in the nearest mosque till claimed by 
the owner. 

It may be a coin has dropped from the purse 



148 The Repose in Egypt. 



of the traveler. There goes the bride whose 
sole dower is five palm-trees : what tinsel and 
glittering nets with pendants for the low brow 
would that coin buy ! The donkeyman who 
who does not know the taste of meat may see, 
but not touch the shining temptation. The 
water-carrier, whose dinner is a black crust and 
an onion, looks a moment, scarcely stops his 
slow, steady gait and passes on, maybe murmur- 
ing a prayer against the sin ; but to pick up a 
lost coin — such an act is unknown in Arabia. 
If we Christians, were half as faithful to our 
beliefs as Musselmen are, the millennium would 
be here. 

I admit there are fabulous accounts of hon- 
esty, but, en passant, here is one I know to be 
true, told me by an English officer in Alexan- 
dria: — A French family fled during the alarm 
in 1882, leaving their house and effects in charge 
of an Arab servant. Eeturning after four 
months, they found Aladdin, if that was his 
name, had pawned his own clothes for food, but 
had touched only to protect the property of his 
master. Even a bag of silver was found tied ; 
not one piece used in extremity of need. This 
story, fresh in mind, persuaded us to give Ach- 
rnet and Hassan unquestioning confidence, al- 
most the last grain of the implicit faith which 
knowledge of the world tries as by fire. We 
had long been stranger to such trust as was 
granted by us to the beguiling youths who had 
agreed to manage our camp for a moderate com- 
pensation. 



The Refiost. 



149 



As I remarked, we consumed a large number 
of eggs, having found them a wholesome article 
of diet in every country. When, at the end of 
three days, Hassan brought in a bill, one item 
of table expense twenty dozen eggs, our child' 
like trust in Arabian honesty trembled and 
turned cold. 0, Hassan, Hassan, how could 
you, how could you ? 

The Antiquary, who has the gift of tongues, 
mildly observed it was impossible for six per- 
sons — two of them delicate ladies — to eat so 
many in three days. The suave Hassan smiled 
benignly, and began his customary formula, " By 
the soul of my grandfather and the bones of my 
father, etc., etc., I swear I have not tasted a 
morsel of egg, but have served them every one 
at the feasts of the Effendi and the Princesses 
of America. Then he salaamed with a rever- 
ence which would have disarmed any but a har- 
dened sword-hand, or still harder, one used to 
Oriental rapacity. He gently averred in his 
worst English, "Eat, muchee egg," and strode 
away to the cooking-lodge with an injured air, 
as our cousins across the water say, " all cut up." 
Then, after a family council, we decided to have a 
daily inspection of supplies and nightly render- 
ing of accounts, to the calm disgust of Hassan 
and his partner in iniquity, and the lightening 
of our expenses. 

The Eastern artist, be it remembered, has a 
rare skill in the combinations of acid and sweet 
which make up sauces. Many a lurking, secret 
Qavor has the French chef de cuisine stolen from 



150 The Repose in Egypt. 



the descendants of cooks who have slept the 
sleep of the embalmed thousands of years, 
among the mummies of the Pharaohs. Not 
algebra and astronomy alone, have we derived 
from the tribes of the wandering feet and weary 
breast ; dainty viands and savory stews come to 
us from their slender and pliant fingers, and the 
delicate banquets of the Greek epicure were not 
complete without knowledge of Egyptian mys- 
teries. 

Achmet was a singer, but his dash of negro 
blood did not mellow his voice to the softness of 
the unmixed African. Desert songs are sad — 
so the poets tell; their inspiration makes them 
most melancholy, and the strangest sound ever 
named music, is the shrill falsetto of the Arabs. 
Naturally they make their audiences sad. ISTot 
to mince phrases, the boy Achmet had a dread- 
ful voice. Happily the kitchen-lodge was not 
near, so we did not go raving crazy. 

" A fine musician before tunes were composed," 
said the laughing Thalia, one evening. " Is it a 
love song ? Listen, my learned friend, and tell 
me what the lad is saying> sitting there cross- 
legged like an idol, watching the handful of coal 
which simmers our dinner." 

"Be quiet a moment, please." We listened 
while our polyglot friend gave his ear to the 
barbaric strain. 

"A tale of war, not love," said he after a few 
moments' close attention, "of spears and fierce 
horsemen whose swords are their parentage, 
whose drink is the blood of slain warriors, and 



The Repose, 



they float in blood like beating human hearts. 
Now he tells of mountain-fastnesses and plains 
between, where the Simoon sweeps and caresses 
you like a lion, with his breath of flame." 

He paused and Achmet's doleful train went 
on. 

" Now it is of the Great Desert where voyaging 
is victory, and if a hostile tribe is met, Paradise 
is for the slain. The waiting houris stretch 
their white arms over the battlements of 
Heaven, and beckon the faithful to their tents 
of hollow pearls, and jacinths, and emeralds. 
There in the Pleasure Fields of the Blest, kept 
safe from the Infidel. In the long and lovely 
month before us, we shall have many a serenade 
in tender strain which I shall delight to trans- 
late. You should hear the verses of some of 
the twenty-five thousand Persian bards, and of 
Mejnoun and Leila, the Romeo and Juliet of the 
East. This is too exciting for pilgrims entering 
a Riposa" 

"Yes; I see we shall have to { make a busi- 
ness of it,' in the language of our own country- 
men, or we shall not be able to achieve the 
Riposa. Shall we have the daily mail ? We 
can arrange for a messenger to bring it ? " 

Secretly we all longed for the mail, but an 
open confession of such a positive sensation was 
hardly in order. 

"Good news we shall hear soon enough, bad 
news always comes too soon. What is the voice 
of the meeting ? I am inclined to the banish- 
ment of all excitements." 



1J2 



The Repose in Egypt* 



" That does well for one who has no very 
strong ties. We would spend more energy conjur- 
ing up the possible troubles at home than in 
running through a newspaper or two. I vote 
for the mail." 

"And I." 

"And I," said Thalia, turning the color of a 
Jaquemine rose. She was thinking of her kriss- 
kross letters lodged at Alexandria. So the 
Antiquary was voted down, and we were to have 
one reminder that we had not swung off on some 
other planet than the dim orb men call Earth. 

The camp-ground was wisely chosen, our order 
of living arranged. " Now for the sweet pause 
in the rush of travel." I said it with unwonted 
emotion; "let us write one chapter unlike all 
the others of our lives. Let us content our- 
selves not with doing, but simply to be. Four 
delightful weeks to loll, to dream, and to rest, no 
thinking behind screens or over portfolios, and 
scratch books. Thirty days each day to be lazier 
and more delicious than all the others. In this 
glorious Isle of the Lily sacred to silence and 
idleness we can — " 

"Yawn our heads off," said Thalia snappishly. 
After a brief pause, resumed, " That will proba- 
bly be our ending. Farewell a long farewell to 
worry, the far niente is ours ; we are in the 
distant Aiden where the blest find surcease trom 
sorrow." 

" We must enter the blessed conditions with 
resolution. Face to face with the solemn loveli- 
ness of nature we are to forget the hurry and 



The Repose. 



153 



flurry, in breathless racing after wealth, useless 
prizes, and accumulated luxuries which go to 
make up the burden that is named civilization. 
"We must give the future to the winds, and 
tranquilly sleep ; even in broad day be visited 
with airy and blissful dreams, and become seers 
of visions better than those which illumine the 
night." 

As the oration ended the orator stretched at 
length on a carpet, and rested his head on a 
cushion. " Do what you like," he added, 
drowsily, " that is my last effort for one month." 

Gracious and grateful the palm shade ; sweet 
to the soul of him who seeks to forget the eternal 
tragedy called living. The stately trunks were 
like sculptured columns, their tops loaded with 
ripe luscious dates which hung from the trunk 
near the root of the lowest green stems, appear- 
ing in the fresh foliage like a basket through 
whose irregular openings the fruit hung down ; 
its amber tint finely contrasting with the dark, 
shining leaves. The clusters must have weighed 
seventy pounds ; sugary, oily, nourishing, shaded 
by the plumed head which Moslems say droops 
like a languid beauty inclining to sleep. 

The Antiquary is nothing if not didactic. 
Enthroned as became the general enlightener of 
the ignorant, he possessed himself of a camp-stool 
and spoke his little piece : — 

"Let me inform my American Colony we are 
not far from Arabia, the country laid down in 
geographies as the anti-industrial center of the 
world. It is inhabited by the very antipodes of 



154 



The Repose in Egypt, 



our serious and struggling race on whom the 
curse of work has fallen — a weight to stagger 
under. We shall not hear the click of the 
telegraph nor the rousing scream of the steam- 
engine, nor any sound to remind us of motions 
of intellect, unending as movements of the heav- 
enly bodies. There is a stop in the wheel ; for 
infinite activity infinite repose, a halcyon calm. 
Eest for its own sake is almost unknown to our 
people. Oar holidays take on the activity of an 
excursion or some stirring recreation. To be 
simply happy by letting go, is not our ideal of 
festa days. But." he continued, cheerfully slap- 
ping his hands together, " we have changed all 
that. Presto! Now we begin." 

Easily said, Antiquary, but not in one day 
can travelers from lands where bread is earned 
by hard labor and much sweat of the brow enter 
the Oriental kaif. Fingers busy in the forenoon 
are apt to be restless through the afternoon. A 
mild languor, a monotonous tranquillity are the 
ideal, yes, and the actual life in the East; abso- 
lute contrast to life in the West. At first we 
did not realize that drowsy indolence is as much 
a matter of temperament as of education and 
habit. High strung nerves cannot sink to the 
joy of calm in one day, any more than the tense 
strings of musical instruments can give out the 
muffled chords which belong to the slackened 
strings, vi-brating at a touch, almost at a breath. 
When the sun showers down torrents of heat the 
true Oriental asks .but the shade of his green 
tent ; the flat sand is his cushion, the cool foun- 



The Repose. 



155 



tain is his drink, beloved of the Prophet, whose 
tomb is covered with the splendor of unceasing 
light. If well to do, a tiny cup of coffee makes 
the hour festal, and so he sits the day through in 
happy trance, taking haif — a word impossible to 
translate into our language. The nearest ap- 
proach we can make to it is lazing. The effort 
of conversation is to be avoided. Memories of 
unpleasant thing are banished, the secret burdens 
of the heart are dropped into oblivion, the future, 
ah, — well Allah, (praised be his name ! ) has ap- 
pointed all, and we wait for w r hat is decreed. He 
will send the best, meantime we sit and rest. 

Think of a member of the Stock-Board, fresh 
from the clamor of Wall St. dropping into such 
quiescence, in a day or a hundred days. His time 
would be ceaseless ennui, insupportable as the 
level sameness and stillness of the Desert, or I 
must say it like the unendurable silence of 
Venice. When the first novelty wear* off, any- 
thing for variety, even an earthquake would be 
welcomed just for a change. There is no appeal 
or suggestion, no stimulus in the Desert monot- 
ony. He who is born to it loves it with a perfect 
love. Men are influenced by their environment, 
are more like the times they live in than their 
own fathers, and the fixed sameness of the sand 
plain passes into their souls. 

Give the Bedouin a camel and a carpet, and 
he is a king of men. That is the nomad or 
wandering Arab, who despises from the depths 
of his soul, and treats with withering scorn the 



i S 6 



The Repose in Egypt, 



Fellaheen, or slaves of the soil, who cultivate 
the ground. 

The pride of these people passes belief. Has- 
san, our cook, regarded that lean, dark figure of 
himself in the spring, as the highest type of 
created things, and his image is very different 
from the harassed faces of the Northern races. 
On him, and him alone, he proudly asserts, 
Allah has bestowed four privileges, turbans for 
diadems, tents for homes, swords for scepters, 
and poems for laws. And the final, supreme 
boast is they are unconquered. Alexander 
dreamed of it, but only in the Valley of Vision 
counted himself the conqueror of Arabia. 

It is restful to body and spirit to contemplate 
the Arab's supreme contentment with his lot, 
his carelessness of the future, his ineffable dig- 
nity of repose from feverish activity and con- 
stant straining after an ideal never satisfied, in 
the mor§ active, but hardly more gifted races of 
the West. In the enchanting country ruled by 
the Kaliphs, it was not without reason they had 
engraved on the public seal, " The servant of 
the Merciful rests contented in the decrees of 
Allah." 

In the twilight we arranged the divans and 
disrobed before the after-glow had faded. 

" How long do you guess we can stand this 
sort of thing ? " asked Thalia, wide-awake un- 
der her gay coverlet. 

"Forever. I actually begin to feel a little 
rested. How good it is. No sights to see for 
thirty days," 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 1 57 

"For my part, I think it's rather — well, 
slow." 

" It's fast enough for me, my Beauty. Good- 
night. And now for sleep and waking for no 
purpose but to think how sweet it is to sleep 
again." 

The Faithful were at rest under their spangled 
blue tent, without a thought for the morrow; 
but we of the far New World could not subdue 
ourselves in one day. Thalia softly turned on 
her cot, which creaked a little every time ; and 
I pounded my pillow seeking a sleepy spot in it. 
The strangeness of the place brought on the 
state known to most women when eyelids will 
not close. I stole to the tent-door, and in the 
luminous dusk looked up with a sense of near- 
ness to the mansions named of old, the Seven 
Stars and Orion. How bright they were, how 
near they seemed ! Not till the night was far 
spent did the best blessing rest on our wearied 
souls. 

XVII. 

POETRY AND MUSIC OF THE ARABS. 

The Arabian has no soul for music as we 
understand it, and the silence habitual to him is 
his best condition. Achmet was our chief musi- 
cian, and when he droned his evening song we 
were thankful he was too poor to afford a rubaba 
— a fearful two-stringed fiddle with which to har- 
row up our souls. He had a recitative of verses 



158 The Repose in Egypt. 

which, he compared to pearls strung, and another 
of prose which he likened to loose ones. 

Through the interpreter we learned that his 
favorite theme was a legendary chief named 
Antar, who flourished in the second century of 
the Hegira. He was the son of a Desert king 
and a black slave, and of such colossal stature that 
on horseback his feet would tear up the ground. 
Hence, he was named one of the earth-rakers. 
In battle this blood-drinker could put ten thou- 
sand to flight. Struck by his sword, heads would 
roll in the dust clipped from bodies like reeds, 
hands would fly through the air like leaves in 
autumn. His voice was as the roaring of a 
thousand lions, and it made the tents of the hos- 
tile tribes to fall, the dead to rise from their 
graves, and infants turn gray in their cradles. 
The student of Gibbon will remember that he 
quotes Antar as the best record ever given of the 
life of the roving tribes of the desert, who look 
with haughty scorn on the degraded beings who 
labor in green fields. Horses knew the conqueror, 
and quaked under their saddles ; chiefs knew 
him, and fled as from the might of destiny; and 
after the battle he would seat himself cross-leg- 
ged on his horse's neck, and in musical measure 
recite his exploits — what might be familiarly 
called " blowing his own trumpet." And, says 
the Eastern historian, he who can chant these 
verses will never require a companion by day or 
a friend by night. They are called by the Arabs 
''convivial," " social," and are the chosen hymns 
of the lords of battle. 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 159 

One of the poems runs somewhat as follows : — 
" I am the son of Shedad, and my lineage is 
of Absian, known above the brilliant canopy of 
heaven. I am the knight of noble steeds. In 
my ambition I exalt myself to the Pleiades by 
my never-failing fortune and illustrious deeds 
I have attained honor, glory and fame, by my 
resolution, so that I am close to Jupiter. Mine 
is a happy star from God who created all man- 
kind His slaves. Were Death to see me, aye ! 
to see me, he would turn aside from me, in fear 
of my tempestuous might and power. For I 
am a stern- faced lion, sublime above all knights 
in the field of flight, by my intrepidity, by my 
modesty and forbearance." 

The modest, stern-faced lion is madly in love 
with his cousin Ibla of the coal-black tresses. 
One night she spread forth three locks of her 
hair, which were exhibited four nights together. 
There are objections to their marriage, and the 
champion of a rival tribe carries her off after 
the manner of the Homeric heroes. Antar 
speeds to the rescue. Ibla hears his voice echo- 
ing like peals of thunder ; cowards gnaw their 
hands in agony; heroes encounter like moun- 
tains; stirrup grates against stirrup; scimetars 
glitter ; spear-blades sparkle ; shouts shake the 
mountains and the valleys, and the swift camels 
flee in terror away. Weeping Ibla, with the 
night-black tresses, overlooks the fight, and 
groans like a mother bereft of her children. 
Fate was let loose among the enemy. The 
King of Death grasped at souls and never failed 



160 The Repose in Egypt. 

of his aim. Antar rushed into every peril, for 
he felt Ibla was looking at him. With two 
blows of his shining steel he cut horse and rider 
so they fell apart into four pieces. His steed 
Abjer dashed into the melee like an outraged 
hyena. And thus, while plundering souls from 
the bodies they inhabited, Antar gayly sang : " I 
am the lover of Ibla, the full moon of full 
moons." His tribe lost only twenty men ; nine 
thousand of the enemy drank of the cup of 
death. In abject submission the few survivors 
crawled to his feet on the crowns of their heads! 
Then the lover sang his lay : 

" Ibla, if the shades of the sable battle dust 
conceal from thee my achievements on the day 
of conflicts, arise and ask my steed if I ever let 
him charge but at the armies, like the gloomy 
night. Ask my sword of me, if I ever smote 
with it on that dreadful day but the skulls of 
kings. Ask my lance of me, if ever I thrust 
with it but at the panoplied hero between the 
throat and the under jaw. I steep my sword, I 
steep my spear, in blood streams. I practice 
patience, and fear not hell itself. How many 
are the spear-thrusts of which my saddle-bow 
and my hip-bone have complained ! And were 
there not One at whose power even kings trem- 
ble, I would make the vault of the firmament 
the back of a horse.'' 

He wanders over the desert adoring Ibla, 
scattering heads like balls, and hands like leaves 
of trees, and dyeing the sand with blood till it is 
like crimson cornelian. He releases captive 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 161 

damsels, and hacks to pieces their captors, and 
his wine is the blood of warriors. After each 
encounter he seats himself on the neck of his 
horse and sings his modest song, with his hand 
on the sword which sparkles like shooting stars. 
Many adventures the " Brandisher of Spears " 
has to recount. Finally the lovers are made 
happy, the marriage day, or rather seven days, 
are appointed. 

I cannot suppress a brief notice of that festival. 
Of animals slain there were twenty thousand 
dromedaries, twenty thousand sheep, as many 
goats and a thousand lions. The bridegroom 
himself caught seven hundred lions and two hun- 
dred tigers. The tent from Persia, pitched for 
Ibla, was the load of forty camels. It was em- 
broidered with fine gold, was studded with 
precious stones and diamonds valued at the 
maintenance of the world. It was sprinkled with 
rubies and emeralds, and there was an awning at 
the door of the pavilion under which four thou- 
sand horsemen could skirmish. The wedding 
guests numbered three hundred thousand. The 
presents to Antar were countless slaves, ready 
day and night to mount when he mounted, and 
halt when he halted, camels, horses, velvets, 
jewels, musk, and ambergris, all of which was 
returned to the givers except the perfumes, which 
the bridegroom gave to Ibla. None but a fool 
or a madman would miss that wedding. And 
here is the climax: "Chamberlains spread 
carpets that the victuals might not spoil, and 
that the guests might eat walking, eat standing, 
n 



The Repose in Egypt. 



eat on horseback, eat sitting, and eat in theii 
sleep ! " 

Such is one of the oldest and most celebrated 
of Arabic compositions. It is older than the 
Arabian Nights, and every evening of the year 
portions are recited to entranced listeners in the 
cafes of Syria, Persia, Aleppo, and Egypt. From 
lethargy and quietism audiences are aroused to 
frenzied delight ; they clap hands and shout "O, 
that we, too, might march to meet the morning! " 

You notice the imagery is strangely like that 
of the Old Testament. Saul and Jonathan were 
swifter than eagles, stronger than lions. In the 
battle-song of Deborah and Barak they chant of 
kings who took no gain of money. They fought 
from heaven; the stars in their courses fought 
against Sisera. The Song of Songs is redolent 
of myrrh, frankincense, aloes, and the spicery 
and balm of the farthest East. " What will ye 
see in the Shulamite ? As it were the companies 
of t wo armies." " Thy neck is as a tower of 
ivory, thine eyes like the fish pools in Heshbon ; 
thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which 
looketh toward Damascus. Thine head upon 
thee is like Oarmel, and the hair of thine head 
like purple"' — Oriental exaggeration which makes 
the poetry of our day dull and tame in metaphor, 

In the poems, or recitations, having hit a 
simile which pleases him, the improvisators 
passes from one image to another, and describef 
in detail the scene or object which his imagina- 
tion conjures up, much after the method of the 
singing king at Bethlehem. 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 163 

Bound the little camp tires of the desert, tales 
from the Arabian Nights are told every night, 
and the mixture of prose and verse, so popular 
with them, makes a curious effect in the sing- 
song narrative. Thus in the familiar story of the 
Merchant and the Djinn, when the spirit raises 
its sword to strike, the merchant recites a poem 
of twelve verses on the varying fates of mankind, 
which is so affecting that bystanders weep and 
the wrathful genius stays his hand. Even where 
reading and writing are known, the taste for 
listening to poets and story-tellers continues in 
high favor. Nobles and monarchs of Persia have 
been so enraptured with recitations that they 
have been known to give the troubadours a 
mouthful of gold, or an extravagant sum enrich- 
ing the singer for life. 

The Bedouins of Sinai profess to know the 
language of beasts, and they translate to the 
traveler love songs which the uninspired do not 
understand, sung by the few birds bold enough 
to haunt the Desert of the Exodus. By the 
teaching of the Koran this wisdom, the greatest 
of divine gifts, was expressly vouchsafed to Solo- 
mon the Wise, the son of David and the Beauti- 
ful One. Let me tell you a fable more than a 
thousand years old :- — 

Bahram, King of Persia, was so careless in 
his administration that half the towns in the 
kingdom became ruined and deserted. One 
night, while on a journey with a Magian priest, 
he passed through a region given up to owls and 
bats ; and hearing an owl screech and his mate 



1 64 



The Repose in Egypt, 



answer Mm, " "What are the owls saying ? " 
asked the king of the wise man. The priest, 
who knew bird language, replied: "The male 
owl is making a proposal of marriage, and the 
lady owl replies, 1 1 shall be most delighted if 
you will give me the dowry I require.' 'And 
what is that ? ' says the male owl. 1 Twenty 
villages,' says she, ' ruined in the reign of our 
most gracious sovereign, Bahrain.'" "And 
what did the male owl promise ? " asked Bah- 
rain. " ! your Majesty," answered the priest, 
"the bird said, 'That is very easy; if his Maj- 
esty lives ten years, I will give you a thousand.' " 
The lesson of the wise man made such an im- 
pression on the king that he reformed his ways. 

The adventures of Ulysses run through tradi- 
tions in various languages, and are the delight 
of scholars wide as the world apart. They seem 
the property of all people, and, entrusted to the 
memories of illiterate tribes, they survive, with 
slight modification, the changes of ninety genera- 
tions of men. The tale of Damon and Pythias 
is heard in Arabia, altered to suit its changed 
surroundings : — 

A young Arab slays an old man for killing 
his favorite camel. The heirs of the murdered 
man demand vengeance and refuse to accept the 
fine which a Mohammedan law allows them to 
receive, instead of the life of the criminal. The 
youth cheerfully consents to pay the death pen- 
alty, but begs for three days' grace, that he may 
attend to some secret business in a neighboring 
town, and pledges his word that he will return 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 16$ 

before that time expires. The Kaliph, before 
Whom he is brought, agrees to allow him to de- 
part on condition that another becomes surety 
for him, and is willing to suffer death in his 
stead, in case the offender fails to return. "An 
old officer of the court who has been a compan- 
ion of the Prophet — may the peace of Allah 
be on him, long as the ringdove moans and the 
pigeon sings ! — and whose person was on that 
account especially sacred, undertakes the office 
of surety merely because humanity forbids that 
the prisoner's hopes should perish, and lest it 
should be said that goodness had fled from 
among men." Of course the young man is late, 
and hurriedly arrives at the last instant, just in 
time to prevent the execution, and has his own 
life spared, as in the Greek legend. The press- 
ing business, so important, was to provide for a 
ward of his, and inform some trustworthy guar- 
dian of the place in which the child's money was 
buried ; for burying money was from the be- 
ginning the only safe mode of investment in the 
Orient. 

Modern investigation, with its perpetual ques- 
tionings, has spoiled much poetry and the fine 
boasts of knights of knights, true chevaliers of 
romance, who despise menial employment, and 
dedicate themselves to gallant deeds for gentle 
ladies. By their own testimony, the knight- 
errant are ready to do and die for the beauty of 
women with bare and silvery feet, Paradise eyes, 
and forms waving as the tamarisk when spice 
winds blow from hills of Araby the Blest 



The Repose in Egypt. 



Some of them beat their breasts, wail, and wan- 
der; rejected lovers bemoaning their doom and 
the cruelty of the obdurate fair. I doubt the 
whole story. In the Orient, women make no 
secret of their wish to marry ; and fair or dark, 
the world holds many to be won. 

When you see a Bedouin with long pipe, sit- 
ting motionless, gazing on vacancy the day 
through, do not believe he is crossed in love, and 
pining in dark doom, but be sure he is thinking 
upon nothing, and enjoying it mightily. The 
Troubadours — whose Arabic name means an en- 
enthusiast fired by love of poetry — go on foot 
from camp to camp challenging rival bards to 
musical contests in extempore verse. Fre- 
quently they are afflicted with blindness, popu- 
larly believed to be the result of frenzy to 
which they are worked up in the composition of 
poems. Success and the admiration of the audi- 
ence appear to be their only objects ; for unless 
some high personage happens to be the poet's 
patron, the contributions are scant — enough, 
however, for his simple wants. Poverty is his 
accepted condition, and he may say with the 
author of the " Ancient Mariner," poetry is 
to me its own exceeding great reward. What 
matters it? 

" Clear as amber, fine as musk, 
Is life to those who, pilgrimwise, 
Move hand in hand, from dawn to dusk, 
Each morning nearer Paradise. 

" O not for them need angels pray! 
They stand in everlasting light; 
They walk in Allah's smile by day 
And nestle in his heart at night." 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 167 

The common people of the East learn from 
the reciter, of whom our modern lecturer is the 
dull representative, and the stump-speaker an 
unpoetic prototype. The language of the 
Prophet — may he rest in glory ! — has a copious 
fullness of rhyme ; rich and varied synonyms 
which run lightly, trippingly, instead of coming 
by devious windings, as with us. The vowels 
are full and liquid, and one anecdote illustrates 
its redundance : — • 

The author of one of the seven prize poems 
written in letters of gold on Egyptian silk, and 
suspended in the Kaaba at Mecca, walking one 
day met a market-woman. The illustrious poet 
asked what she carried in her basket. She an- 
wered by a word the scholar had never heard 
before. The question was repeated, and again 
followed by a reply unintelligible to the author 
of the golden verses. And so the old woman 
went on, giving successively thirty-nine different 
Arabic names, until at the fortieth, she was un- 
derstood to mean onions ! Hence the proverb, 
" Wisdom has alighted on three things : the 
brain of the Franks, the hand of the Chinese, the 
tongue of the Arabs." The charm of the Desert 
is in the repeated rhymes to stars, the palm, the 
fountain, the mirage — which allusion is beauti- 
fully rendered in the most ancient of languages, 
"the thirst of the antelope." 

They understand the enchantments of distance, 
and it is always the remote clan, mounted on 
pawing chargers, which is father of the mighty 



168 



The Repose in Egypt, 



bard whose sounding numbers charm the ear and 
ravish the senses. Here is a mourning-song: 

"I am like a wounded camel ; 
I grind my teeth in pain ; 
My load is great and heavy; 
I am tottering again. 

"My back is torn and "bleeding ; 
My wound is past relief: 
And what is harder still to bear, 
None other knows my grief! " 

This is often quoted as a specimen of the best 
poetry of the heart. May be when the Asian 
Eomeo chanted it in the ear of the listening 
night it might have been effective. Transplanted 
to TTestern wilds, in the broad glare of day, it 
would hardly secure a place in the poet's corner 
of a country newspaper. What does my reader 
think of a second example of the same sort of 
verse ? 

" O handkerchief I send thee off to yonder maid. 

Around thee I my eyelashes will make the fringe of grace= 
I will the black point of my eye rub up to paint therewith, 
To you coquettish beauty go— go look thou in her face. 

" handkerchief the loved one"s hand take, kiss her lips so sweet. 
Her chin which mocks at apple and at orange, kissing greet. 
If sudden any dust should light upon her blessed head. 
Fall down before her. kiss her sandal's sole, beneath her feet. 

" A sample of my tears of blood thou handkerchief wilt show. 
Through these, within a moment, would a thousand crimson 
grow. 

Thou'it be in company with her while I am sad with grief; 
To me no longer life may be, if things continue so." 

The rhapsodists — dedicated to perpetual pov- 
erty, by the blessed law of compensation — console 
themselves with splendid dreams. They know 
about sorceries and alchemy, the black art, the 



EGYPTIAN SYSTRUM. 




BAND OF SIX MUSICIANS. 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 169 

transmutation of metals in underground caverns, 
where mighty secrets are kept by a dim- swarm- 
ing people. Alchemists and their slave Djinns 
are there at work among grand mysteries, handed 
down through numberless generations, and fur- 
naces are kept heated so many years that sala- 
manders are born in them. 

The supernatural comes readily into lives of 
loneliness, and in the Desert astrologers, priests, 
wizards and wonder-workers exhibit jugglery 
which is old as the Pyramids. The operators in 
magic are wonderfully earnest, and if a trick 
fails, they reverently repeat the solemn truth the 
Kaliphs in their day of pride and power wrote 
in the lovely mosaics of their palaces : " There 
is no conqueror but God " — an everlasting admo- 
nition to all who seek dominion. 

Ask the dozing Achmet why, if lead can be 
changed into gold by the wise, there is so little' 
current in the tribes, and he answers: "The 
things belonging to the unseen are not revealed 
save unto the predestined. All mighty move- 
ments are slow; what signifies a thousand years 
to the soul fated to live forever ? " — a mummery 
which makes us feel like blasphemers and re- 
duces us to silence. 

There are delicate measures in Arab verse, 
and their similes have pretty touches, but as for 
music, it is denied to the Arabian. He is not 
born or trained to it. One might think in Egypt 
— land of pleasant groves, dimpling wave and 
swaying reed — the union of voice and instru- 
ment would be perfected. That rhythmic cadence 



The Repose in Egypt, 



would come, as Dogberry's reading and writing, 
" by nature." Her never-dying melodies bring 
endless suggestion to ears attuned aright. But 
there is no more music in the war- song and the 
love-song of the tribes of the East, than in the 
monotonous rub-a-dub of the naked North 
American Indian, leaping through the obscene 
figures of the Green Corn dance. The Arab's 
music is milder, according to his milder environ- 
ment; and he does not sway violently, as he 
sings, so to speak, in the passive voice. The 
slow contortions of body accord with the un- 
dulating palm leaves overhead, and the restful 
scene below. The choice Oriental verses, which 
were the delight of my youth, in "Lalla Kookh," 
were the work of a Western minstrel, and set 
to melodies wondrous sweet, in the shady bower 
of an English garden. They were not born of 
the lands they described. 

Miriam's timbrel, or tambourine, is the model 
of the modern tar } found in nearly every Egyp- 
tian house. The Eastern voice is extremely 
fine, and we can imagine her triumphant burst, 
beside the Eecl Sea, was in high falsetto, vibrat- 
ing through the pure atmosphere till the waves 
of sound touched the outer line of the listening 
multitude. 

They have modes of time unknown to us, em- 
ployed in dance-music; alternating bars of var- 
ious measure. They delight in this mixed time, 
which seems to affect them as one of Strauss's 
waltzes does an audience familiar with it, mak- 
ing every foot start at the first bar of the orches- 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 



171 



tra. Some strains are like the tremolo of the 
organ, and 110 opportunity is lost for gratifying 
their love of music. 

Such as it is, there is a great deal of music in 
the East; not practiced by professionals alone, 
but attempted by children, old men and women, 
and it is held a deplorable calamity yet, in the 
land where the immortal description of old age 
was written : " When all the daughters of music 
are brought low." Christian, Moslem, Jew, 
chant their services and the congregation accom- 
pany with a continuous drone on the keynote. 
Baptism, marriage, burial, all feasts and solemni- 
ties — and they are many — come and go with 
singing. There is little doubt that the music we 
hear while journeying through the changeless 
Orient is the same, and executed on the same in- 
struments and the accompaniment of the same 
dances — military, social, religious — which pleased 
the Pharaohs, the Kings of Judah, Assyria, and 
Babylon. 

There is one sound far above singing, heard 
throughout Islam : the muezzin's call to prayer. 

No tolling bell or peal of chimes is like this 
sound ; and after years of residence in the East 
I never became indifferent to it. Mohammed 
preferred the human voice to the trumpet of the 
Israelite or the rattle of the primitive Christian. 
Had the founder of the fierce faith of Arabia 
chosen the calls adopted by other religions, the 
graceful minaret — fairest thing among the mani- 
fold beauties of Saracenic architecture — would 
have been lost to the world. 



172 



The Repose in Egypt. 



The Pillar of Victory, as it is sometimes 
called, answers to the campanile of the Chris- 
tian cathedral. There is nothing elsewhere to 
equal it. Even the famous tower in the City of 
the Eed Lily sends out no such thrilling notes, 
all peace and sweetness though they be. The 
minaret is a tall, slim, circular tower of marble, 
white as silver, piercing the eternal sapphire. 
Within is a winding staircase through which 
one may reach the balconies. The crowning 
beauty is an equisite ornamental finial, tapering 
to a sharp point like an old-fashioned silver 
pencil-case. It is impossible to convey in words 
an idea of such lightness and matchless grace. 
Icicles turned upside down are nearest minarets 
in form, and at regular intervals they are ringed 
wdth three balconies, which add to rather than 
take from their aereal construction. 

Punctually, at the same moment, resounding 
from every minaret of Africa, Asia and Europe, 
are heard five words, the formula of Islam, 
chanted to the four points of the compass : 
" There is no God but God." From the interior 
glides a ghost-like figure in white turban and 
long sweeping robes. He pauses a moment in 
the horseshoe arch, approaches the railing high- 
est of the three galleries circling the tower, and 
sends a far-reaching note to vast distances, pen- 
etrating as the voice of the soul, appealing as 
the stir of awaking conscience. The tremulous 
waves of sound float as though in search of 
hearers yet more remote, who should kindle and 
glow with the fervor of a devotee at his shrine. 



Poetry and Music of the Arabs. 173 

There is a thrill of pathos in the cry when heard 
by the stranger in dreamful mood, and the 
stately measure strikes on the heart like vibrant 
notes of some divine music; like the sound of 
years and years of departed happiness. 

The office of muezzin is usually given to 
blind men, lest from their lofty elevation they 
may have too free a view of gardens and harems 
over the surrounding terraces. And it touches 
one the more to watch the consecreted servants 
of God grope their way to the railing. They 
are selected for their sonorous voices, and the 
simplicity and solemnity of the appeal make a 
strangely poetic imprint on the minds of the 
hearers in day time. Much more touching is it 
when the sacred chant, with its slow swell and 
dying fall, resounds through the ivory moonlight 
of the Oriental night. Then it starts tender 
memories of lands lying nearer the North Star, 
of trysting places and summer eves. Phantom 
faces, long buried, rise again, and accents, long 
hushed in the everlasting silence, are heard once 
more. The distant voices seem to meet in the 
air, greeting and parting in a fineness of sound 
like the fineness of color in pale shades. When 
the pathetic music dies, the ear strains after it 
with a vague sense of repentance for pursuit of 
the baubles of worldly ambition. The passion- 
ate desires, the strivings, the pangs of failure, 
the exaltations of victory lessen in value and 
float away with the floating airs. Dim yearn- 
ings after a better life haunt the listener and 
linger in his heart, an inspiration and a desire. 



174 



The Repose in Egypt. 



The Arabic language, like the Italian, is 
marked by such flexibility that it is almost im- 
possible not to rhyme in it. The blind muezzin 
calls to the dwellers in tabernacles (V. e., in tents), 
whose greatest luxury is the blessed consolation 
of sleep : — 

"Come to prayers, come to prayers, 
Come to the temple of salvation, 
Prayer is better than sleep." 

And the faithful reply in mutual rhythm : — 

M In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate. 
Praise be to Allah who the three worlds made, 
The merciful, the compassionate. 
The King of the Day of Judgment. 

Thee alone do we worship, and of thee alone do we ask aid. 

G-uide us in the path that is strait. 

The path of those for whom thy love is great, 

Not they on whom is hate, 

Or those who deviate. 

Amen. Oh. Lord of Angels, Djinns, and men." 

I have seen idlers in green fields, wanderers by 
the roadside, passengers on the decks of steamers 
answer the command instantly as it is uttered. 
Most solemn and inspiring was the sight of a 
regiment of the Sultan's under the Crescent flag 
of Islam, responding unitedly. In the dim, blue 
distance a thousand red turbans went down as 
one, every face toward the Kaaba, every fore- 
head in the dust. VThen shall we behold the 
spectacle of an army of the Cross of Christ rev- 
erently kneeling when the summons to prayer is 
heard ? Some such thing might have been in 
the armies of the Crusaders, or among the troops 
of Cromwell — that camp where a vulgar jest or 
a profane word was never spoken — but it is not 



The First Cinderella. 



175 



in our generation of doubters and scoffers at every 
form of worship. 

Let me give from the religious code of the 
Moslem one passage of peculiar force. It is 
chanted in the mosques as we repeat the Apos- 
tle's Creed: "Allah is sole and Eternal. He 
lives and is all-powerful. He knows and sees 
everything, is endowed with volition and action. 
In him is neither form nor figure, nor bounds nor 
limits, nor numbers nor parts, nor multiplica- 
tions nor divisions ; because he is neither body 
nor matter. He has neither beginning nor end, 
but exists by himself without generation, with- 
out an abode, independent of the empire of Time ; 
as incomparable in his nature as in his attributes, 
which, without being separated from his essence, 
do not constitute it." 

XVIII. 

THE FIRST CINDERELLA: A TALE OF THE RED 
PYRAMID.* 

Among- the gray pyramids of Egypt stands 
one that was anciently cased in red granite, and, 
while resting in its shadow, one day, I heard 
this tale told of the builder of the Eed Pyra- 
mid : — 

Many and many a hundred years ago, centur- 
ies before there was any Christmas, the King of- 
Egypt sat on the ivory throne in his Palace-hall, 

* Being the story which the Antiquary wrote in Cairo. For the 
legend on which it is founded, the reader is referred to the "His- 
tory of Psammaticus, Fourth Pharaoh of the Twenty-Sixth Dy- 
nasty." 



1/6 



The Repose in Egypt. 



guarded by soldiers armed and dumb. At bis 

right band, a step below him, was tbe Crown 
Prince, a beautiful youth of nineteen, the age 
when the years are all Summers. On the left, 
two steps lower, sat the wise Counselor, with 
beard white as frost, and he lived at four-score, 
when the years are all winters. He was the 
only subject who sat in presence of the King or 
dared advise him. Wiser than other men, he 
could foretell the future, knew the language of 
beasts, what the stars are made of, and why 
comets go wandering through the sky. A poet 
once, now toothless and deaf he could only 
mumble scraps of old verses in a voice shrill as 
a grasshopper's chirp. 

It was so hot, one could fairly see the heat. 
The door-Avay opened into a court alive with, 
birds and shady with trees, whose leaves hung 
wilted and curled in the flaming sunshine. Un- 
der a pavilion of porphyry and jasper a fountain's 
plash and gurgle made cooling sounds, very 
pleasant to hear. It fell into a basin of alabas- 
ter bordered with greenery and blue flags, and 
fed a lake where swans were swimming and a 
tame ibis sought food. 

The sullen King and his gloomy Counselor 
sat with hands on their knees, their feet close 
together, like the granite statues of gods on the 
Nile banks staring eternally at nothing. The 
Prince was restless as quicksilver, glancing in 
every direction, talking much and very fast. 
Suddenly he exclaimed : 



The First Cinderella, 



177 



u There is an eagle overhead. I will order my 
arrows and shoot it." 

"No," said the King, languidly, raising his 
painted eyelids ; " that is only a speck of cloud.' 7 

"I see it. Look, quick! now he swoops 
down. 7 ' 

He ran to the lake, but before he reached the 
bridge spanning it something dropped into the 
center of the court. He picked up the fallen 
prey, and was about to fling it into the water, 
when the King called : 

" Bring it here." 

The boy returned, holding out a shoe, or, 
rather, sandal, of very small size. 

" What an odd thing for an eagle to carry off'! 
It is foreign." 

The King examined it with as much curiosity 
as he should who is adored as a god by the mere 
earth-worms called men. 

" A pretty thing," he said, weighing it in his 
immense brown hand. "Some dancer's slipper." 

"No; if it had been danced in, the straps 
would be strained at the holes. It is not the 
curved and pointed sole of our shoemakers ; this 
is Grecian work." 

" Whoever the owner be, she dwells in the 
Happy Valley of Childhood," chirped the Coun- 
selor, briskly. u How delicate the print inside ! 
How tender must be the foot which has pressed 
it so lightly, for it is not new ; the strings are 
frayed and lining faded. I wonder whose it is? 
Let us try to imagine her." 

" Why not find her? A new idea. Go," said 
12 



1 7 8 



The Repose in Egypt. 



the King, changing his rigid manner, H take my 
signet, order heralds and swift ships from the 
Delta to the Cataract. Proclaim that whoever 
brings the mate of this shoe, and can wear them 
both, shall sit on the throne of Eameses and be 
buried with me in the Eed Pyramid. I shall kill 
my fifty-four Abyssinian queens and have only 
this one. I swear it hy the lotus-bud of my 
scepter, and make oath by the Nameless Name 
it is death to utter. For I am Pharaoh Xecho." 

Then there was tumult throughout Egypt. 
East, west, north, south sped the runners, and 
swift camels carried the decree from the Eed Sea 
far as the Mountains of the Moon. The cour- 
tiers said the King was so well pleased he was 
seen to laugh, but that was not believed. It 
could have been only a mystic half-smile such 
as the Sphinx wears; for when was a Pharaoh 
known to laugh ? They thought, or would have 
thought had they dared, that he was crazy, and 
trembled lest the owner of the slipper should not 
be found. Who brought such news would have 
his skull split by a blow of the golden scepter, 
which was so heavily loaded, one touch would 
slay the strongest. The death-stroke was on the 
back of the neck, swift and sure as lightning. 
There was wailing in the Palace of the Queens. 

"Must we die to-day?" was the question of 
the morning, "and because our royal master 
has found an old slipper which a bird let 
fall!" 

And their mourning was like the mourning in 
the days of Eameses. when the first-born were 



PHARAOH " NECHO. 11 



The First Cinderella. 



179 



smitten. The morning question of the King 
was, " Is she found who wears the Greek san- 
dal ? " And the messengers shivered and shrank 
as they answered. 

Thus three months passed, and the wise Coun- 
selor observed, " The girl is dead, and buried to 
rot as the barbarians bury. She has missed the 
glory of being embalmed in perfumes and spic- 
ery, and lying in the triple coffin in the Eed 
Pyramid.' 7 

One morning he and the King sat, as usua], 
fetill as ghosts, their feet close together, hands on 
their knees, staring straight on at nothing. The 
Prince was tossing up balls of agate, keeping 
five at a time in the air — the gayest youth, clad 
in a purple robe, broidered and fringed with 
gems and belted with netted gold. There was a 
stir at the gate. The chief of the guard came 
forward and bowed his forehead to the dust. 
Without moving, Pharaoh darted a sidelong 
glance that way. 

" O King, live for ever ! The lady thou sought 
is here." 

" Bring her." 

" King, pardon the meanest of thy slaves. 
She is black — black as I am." 

" I change not, for I am Pharaoh. If she proves 
herself the owner of the slipper, she is my elected 
Queen." 

The ostrich plumes of the soldiery nodded 
and waved a moment, then a solemn hush, while 
the boldest held his breath. A Nubian woman 
advanced with uncertain tread. She had jet- 



i8o 



The Repose in Egypt* 



black skin, thick, brown lips, and kinky curls 
smeared with palm-oil. She shaded her oblique 
eyes and crawled to the foot of the throne, 
crouching with terror, shaking till the bangles 
on her ankles jingled. 

" Try the slipper!" thundered Pharaoh. 

Sitting on the pavement, she loosened the 
thongs, and fitted it tightly to the small, black 
foot. 

" The Queen is found ! " cried the Prince. " She 
shall sit on the sacred cushion, checkered crim- 
son, black and gold." 

"Hold!" said the King, sternly. "Too fast, 
boy; but one-half the condition is filled. Where 
is the mate to the shoe?" 

The Nubian tried to speak. Words rattled in 
her throat. 

"O King, live for ever! I did not know — M 
She shuddered. 

"Not know!" roared Pharaoh, furious as a 
tiger. "This may teach thee!" 

He gave her a stroke with the terrible whip, 
never far from his hand ; blood gushed from her 
mouth, one struggle, a gasp, and all was over with 
poor Xeith, who dreamt of reigning in the halls 
of Eameses. 

"Away with the horrible creature!" growled 
Pharaoh, under his braided beard. "Away 
with her! — throw her to the crocodiles " 

Then there was light in the Palace of the 
Queens. They wept for joy over their children, 
thinking their troubles were ended. Two more 
months dragged into the past, and the dismal 



The First Cinderella, l8l 

King and his Counselor sat, as usual, gloomier 
and crosser than ever. Only the handsome 
Prince had any pleasure, singing, dancing and 
laughing from morning till night — the son of 
Pharaoh's old age, and he loved the light-hearted 
lad as he loved his own soul — which is saying a 
great deal. 

It was at the close of a day of splendid cere- 
monial, and the King wore his double crown. 
Again the chief of the guard advanced, pale as 
the dead, and fell before the throne, his plumes 
sweeping the steps. Pharaoh roused as from 
sleep. 

"She is found, King. Give thy slave leave 
to bring the lady of the sandal?" 

" Go. Beware of another blunder ! " 

The captain backed out, and soon returned. 
Slowly across the wide area marched the officer. 
After him, with soundless step, glided a young 
girl, slight in shape as a child. White linen, 
draped in clinging folds, showed her form of 
perfect mould. The robe, caught high on the 
shoulders, left her arms bare, and they were pure 
as pearl. Her hair, floating like spun gold, was 
held by a fillet of scarlet cord, her only orna- 
ment, except a necklace of lotus-lilies lying on 
her bosom. 

"What loveliness!" exclaimed the Prince, 
running to meet her. " She, too, wears the 
double crown — Youth and Beauty. The marble 
is slippery ; let me lead thee." 

Her modest eyes sought the winsome, eager 
face, and in silence she laid her hand in his 



182 



The Repose in Egypt. 



strong clasp. Led before Pharaoh, instead ot 
sinking on the pavement, she looked up at the 
tall, high -crowned figure with fearless gaze. 
Such, eyes, blue as deep-sea water, had never be- 
fore met that glance unshrinking. 

" The sandal," said be, amazed at her bold- 
ness. 

It was brought. Her bare feet, shaped in 
exquisite curves, were scarcely larger than when 
a mother's hand held them in her own, and each 
toe was separate and perfect- as a sculptor's ideal 
modeled in wax. One dimpled foot, with skin 
fine as white satin, easily slipped into the san- 
dal. She drew the other from her sash, crossed 
the thongs on the arching instep, clasped the 
buckles of both ; then, folding her hands across 
the dove-like breast, she stood erect before the 
dark, awful form whose voice made men gasp 
for breath and women faint with fear. 

" What is thy name ? " asked Pharaoh, 
graciously. 

" Ehodope, King." 

" Thou art well named Eosebloom 5 and thy 
nation ? " 

" I am of Ionia, and a slave." 

" Tell me what thou rememberest of that bar- 
barian region." 

" Eather ask what I forget. It is ever near 
to me," she answered, wistfully, in a tone like 
delicate music after the harsh accents of Egypt. 
She continued, as one talks in sleep, and the 
shining eyes grew dreamy : " I see isles rocked 
in a sapphire sea; hills of violet and amber \ 



The First Cinderella. 183 

cool, green gardens of olives and clustering 
vines; altars of carven alabaster with fragrant 
fires and garlands. Each tree and rock and rill 
is the haunt of some kind nymph or loving god. 
I hear bees humming through the wild thyme. 
In balmy eves the nightingale sings, and rushing 
brooks keep time with flutes and reeds of the 
shepherds. No crashing cymbals and fish skin 
drums are in my far, sweet land." 

" Have you columns like unto mine ? " asked 
Pharaoh, pointing to a tower built like a stair- 
way up into the sky. 

Its wall was painted in vivid color. Giants 
with throats circled by asps, gazing with baleful 
eyes ; crocodiles, snakes, crawling reptiles, hid- 
eous past telling — symbols of the brute greatness 
of Egypt. And running through all was the 
image of Pharaoh, grinding his heel on the fore- 
heads of kings, stamping the breath out of tor- 
tured captives, and dragging them, gashed and 
mangled, at his chariot- wheels. 

" We have nothing like them," she replied, 
disgust and horror shadowing the gentle face. 
" These monsters must be memories of a fever 
dream." 

Pharaoh was stunned by her insolence. 

"Ahem! She doesn't notice my portrait. 
What have you, then? " he sneered. 

" We have pictures of women made for love; 
godlike men, with ivy and laurel circling their 
smooth brows ; crowns won in victories where 
there is no blood." 

Th'5i to him whose chief joy was to march on 



184 The Repose in Egypt, 

the necks of the vanquished, to count piles of 
heads dripping with warm lifeblood, and watch 
corpses go drifting down the river ! 

" Her time has come/' thought the old Coun- 
selor, and covered his face with his hands to shut 
out the fearful vision. 

The Prince stepped quickly to her side. 
Pharaoh curbed his wrath, and continued: 
" Wouldst thou return to thy people ? " 

"A slave can have but one wish." 

Sparkling drops gathered under the veined 
eyelids and fell on the pavement. 

" Do not cry, Khodope," said the Prince ; " thy 
tears fall on my heart." 

" I would not grieve thee with my griefs, 
bright Prince. Thy pity dries my tears," she 
said, softly. 

He wiped her eyes with her hair, smoothed 
the rippling gold away from her neck, and pat- 
ted her shoulder as one quiets a baby. A pink 
flush tinted her brow and faded as it came, while 
she shyly studied the make of her little shoes. 
The lotus necklace trembled with the nutter of 
her breast, and for a time nothing was heard but 
the splash of falling water and the scream of a 
cockatoo swinging in his hoop of reed. It was 
a pretty sight! Two blameless children, heed- 
less of the tyrant who looked over their heads 
at the outline of the Libyan Hills. "Warm 
winds blowing across the garden wafted a stray 
ringlet against the Prince's robe. The youth 
bent low, lifted the bright wonder to his lips one 
moment, and then went back to his place, but 



The First Cinderella. 



not with his usual bounding step. The Coun- 
selor's dim eyes filled, and the King felt defeated, 
he knew not why, nor knew he how to answer 
the lofty look and appealing gesture of his 
son. 

"How long since thou left Ionia?" he in- 
quired, trying to subdue his thundering speech. 

" I know not. My father was torn from me. 
My six brothers, whom the gods made good as 
they were beautiful, were beaten to death. I 
was dragged by my hair — " 

"Those sunbright tresses," murmured the 
Prince. 

" Was prisoned in a ship and sold to a noble 
lady of Naucratis." 

"What misery, father ; think of that adorable 
form bending; under the dreadful water-basket." 

" I was not sent to the field," pursued Ehodope, 
with a grateful look ; " but it was a bitter 
change for one who had never heard harsher 
sounds than the fishers' chorus answering their 
wives out at sea. I had only to arrange the 
toilet of my mistress and sing to her." 

" Let me hear one of thy native songs, my 
Eosebloom," said Pharaoh. 

"How can I sing my country's songs in a 
strange land, King ? " 

Was ever anything like unto it? A slave 
refusing to sing for Pharaoh ! Why, all the 
women of Egypt would give their eyes for such 
a chance. But Ehodope was willful as she was 
innocent. Fearless and quiet, she stood, neither 
willing nor disobedient, only she might not 



1 86 



The Repose in Egypt. 



sing. Never in his reign of forty years had the 
monarch such an experience. He was rather 
amused, as he had been when a child once 
climbed his chariot and pulled his sacred beard. 
The mother expected the deathblow for the out- 
law, and, instead, he took the boy in his arms 
and actually kissed him. There was a warm 
spot in his heart, after all. 

" Knowest thou, rash girl, thou art in danger 
of death ? Tangles of yellow hair and eyes like 
the shimmer of the sea will not protect thee. I 
never strike twice." 

His hand sought the dread scepter. 
. " Canst thou kill that ? " retorted the daunt- 
less maid, pointing to a moth sailing by on silky 
wing. 

Pharaoh struck, missed his aim, and sparkles 
of fire followed his blow on the stone. The but- 
terfly fluttered to the top of an acacia, and 
glowed there like a little lamp. He smothered 
his rage. 

" Fool ! " exclaimed he, grimly ; " thou hast 
no wings." 

"My soul has," she answered; "they are 
folded until I shall rise by them to the dear 
company of my people." 

And this to the King of a Hundred Kings ! 
Not only she refused to sing, but boldly defied 
him to his face. For the first time in his life he 
was puzzled. The Eose of the Egean was a 
thorny, prickly little thing ; but as for letting 
her go, no, no. Nor would he beat her brains 
out, as he was tempted. 



The First Cinderella. 



187 



" She is a simpleton," said he, in the language 
sacred to royalty. 

" She is a priestess," piped the Counselor. 

" She is a delight," sang the Prince. 

"Dost thou know my power?" loudly de- 
manded the despot. " Thousands on thousands 
of women are this moment dying of love for me. 
Half the grace I have shown thee would be to 
them an everlasting glory." 

" Thou hast said it," replied Ehodope, sim- 
ply ; in no way moved, except to avert her face 
from his frown. 

" She is tired, my father," said the Prince, 
coaxingly. " Let her sit on thy footstool. Here, 
rest thee, Eose-maiden." 

" It does not become me to sit in royal pres- 
ence ; thanks for thy courtesy, gentle Prince." 

Monstrous, this ! King and Prince both 
baffled and confused by a slave whose life was 
no more than a bubble of foam broken on the 
waves of yesterday. 

" Ignorant ! " said Pharaoh, haughtily, making 
a last effort to overawe the strange spirit. 
" Knowest thou why thou art brought to the 
Lord of the Daybreak, whom the Sun salutes as 
his brother before he rises ? " 

" I was told there is a prize waiting for her 
who can wear my sandals." 

" First tell how one was lost ? " 

" We were bathing in the river. After the 
bath I hunted it in vain, and supposed it was 
stolen." 

" It was stolen by a bird, Bhodope " 



The Repose in Egypt. 



" The King is pleased to jest with his servant." 

" No," broke in the Prince ; " an eagle carried 
it off, and let it fall in this very court. I was for 
throwing it in the lake — " 

" Hush, dearest," interrupted Pharaoh. " We 
must see if the stranger is equal to her destiny. 
She is — well — unusually dull. What is thy 
wish ? Ask, Rosebloom ! " 

She scanned the pictured reptiles on the walls, 
the writhing, twisted asps ; then the earnest eyes 
came back to the colossal statue of the King, 
created as though to outlast the wear of cen- 
turies. 

"A slave knows but one wish." 

11 Thine is granted. Thou art free. Wilt thou 
return to thy people ? " 

" My people have crossed the black flowing 
river, and are in the Fields Elysian. My home 
is ashes, my city is but dust, her bow is broken. 
Not a fisher's net is spread on our coast to-day." 

The baby mouth trembled. 

"Ask; were it half my kingdom, I give it 
thee. A singular study," said Pharaoh, aside, to 
the Counselor. • 

" I know not what to say," rejoined Ehodope, 
bashful and troubled. She changed eyes with 
the charming Prince. 

" Choose," he insisted, smiling brightly. " The 
King's son commands it." 

She shook her head, and grew red and white 
by turns. 

" I have sworn by Isis and Osiris the wearer 
of the sandals shall sit on my throne, and b§ 



The First Cinderella. 



buried in the Eed Pyramid. Cheops and Shofra 
alone are greater." He proudly looked toward 
three mighty wedges cleaving the Desert air. 
"Armies of slaves have toiled on it day and 
night. My history is painted on the inner 
chamber. All is ready for our mummies to be 
laid away in the darkness." 

He expected her to swoon with rapture, and 
kneel at his feet and kiss them. The Counselor 
shrilly piped, not so low but that all could hear : 

" In the Kingdom of Love, Youth is King." 

" I will not lie sealed tight in the Eed Pyra- 
mid. A mountain of stoile on my breast, I 
could not sleep. Bound in bandages and daubed 
with bitumen, I should be prisoner even in 
death ! " 

The voice, sweet as a Dorian flute, carried a 
force which abashed the tyrant. 

" What is thy teaching and superstition? " he 
inquired, with freezing coldness. 

"Let me rest in the land of my love, under the 
sentinel cypress-tree, in a pleasant tomb, with a 
window cut through so I can see the swallows 
when they come back in the Spring. Or let my 
body be purified by fire and gathered into a holy 
urn when my shade has passed the viewless 
gate." 

" Useless to waste words on a silly girl with- 
out wit enough to love life or fear death. Only 
one more question to end the matter: Rose- 
maiden, what sayst thou to sitting on my 
throne ? " 



190 The Repose in Egypt. 

She surveyed the place princesses would die 
to possess one hour. 

" It is too high for me," she said. 

Pharaoh gnashed his teeth, foam gathered on 
his lips, and thej whitened with wrath fearful to 
behold. 

" Now, by all the gods of Egypt," he hissed, 
"tempt me not, or it may be worse for thee." 

" It cannot be worse for the w r retched exile. 
Know, mighty King, I am of a noble line, 
daughter of a chief." Her voice rang trumpet 
c'ear, graining strength as she continued: "He 
and my brethren are in the fields of fadeless 
asphodel, encamped with the heroes. They 
wear the shining armor of the Immortals. 
Think you I fear to follow ? Break this frail 
shell. It will be a welcome touch which gives 
my spirit room to stretch its wings. Happy 
Lethe will wash away the memories of bondage 
and the scars of my chains." 

She lifted her hands. On each wrist was a 
ridge where fetters had eaten into the tender 
flesh. 

" Thus I cover them with my own bracelets. 
None other wears the coiled asps and the sacred 
beetles." 

She drew back. 

"The serpent scares me. I would die as I 
have lived. I go as to a banquet. Now — " 

Wild lights blazed in her eyes. They 
gleamed like dark jewels. One yearning glance 
for the Prince, one rapt look toward heaven — 
the mystery so near — and she bowed her head 



The First Cinderella. 



191 



to the deathstroke, her sunny locks falling round 
it in a golden glory. A thrill of admiration 
started the pulse of Pharaoh as it had not 
throbbed in years, and shook him with strange 
power. 

" So fragile yet so strong ! It is wonderful. 
She is upheld by something from the unseen 
world playing in this creature to torment me." 
His rage passed, and his face resumed its icy 
calm. " What is there in thee, what secret 
strength I cannot touch ? " 

" It is the soul of a Grecian. No marvel, O 
King; but it is beyond thee. "Weak, helpless 
as I am, not all the might of all the Pharaohs 
can make me blench or quiver." 

As she spoke the sinless soul came up to its 
windows and looked out without a tremor. And 
again the old Grasshopper chirped: "In the 
Kingdom of Love Youth is King." The refrain 
of a song, mournful as tears, which some lost 
love sang long ago. It touched the tiger-heart. 

" True, true," muttered Pharaoh, and rising, he 
paced the hall alone. " I will not treat her as I 
did poor Nind, with the forget-me-not eyes, who 
used to sing in the twilight. How her ghost 
haunts me now! This foolish child may live, 
and so shall my fifty-four Abyssinian queens." 
He paused before a vast marble slab, polished 
till it reflected his towering person like a mirror. 
" The Greeks are a beauty-loving race," he 
mused. "This wrinkled, war-worn face is no 
mate for yon fresh blossom in the dew of ihe 
morning. Hands which can throttle a wild w€>lf 



192 



The Repose in Egypt. 



are not made to plait flowers, nor are these the 
limbs to trip it in gay Greek dances." 

Pharaoh had fought many battles ; his first 
struggle with self was soon over. Here-entered 
the court. The sun was setting like a red-hot 
ball. In its fiery glow the shape so wondrous 
fair stood moveless, lone as some lovely statue 
wrought in ivory and gold. She regarded him 
listlessly, as if she would say, " What now, my 
master ? " 

The Counselor sat with hands on his knees 
staring straight on at nothing. The Prince was 
gayly humming a street ballad. 

" Son," said Pharaoh, tenderly, " one day my 
power almighty will be thine." 

"One day, father; not now," he pleaded, 
kissing the extended hand. " The double crown 
makes headache, and the scepter is heavy to 
bear. Let me enjoy my life while it is May." 

"Come nearer, pretty one," Pharaoh contin- 
ued, with a smile, which became him better than 
his crown; "the regal cushion, barred with 
black, red and gold, has waited for thee six 
months. Thou has seen and rejected it." 

" The seat is too high for me," repeated Eho- 
dope, with the stubborn hold of an unreasoning 
child. 

" Yes, thou art right. Many have fallen in 
the attempt to climb this throne, and thy tiny 
feet might slip, but no harm can live under the 
shadow of my scepter. Come hither, my son, 
my darling. Here, on the lower step, beside 



The First Cinderella. 



193 



thee, I lay the barred cushion of the coming 
Queen." 

Her heart's colors flashed into the flower-like 
face. 

" The blush-rose of the Egean is mine, is 
mine/ 7 sang the Prince. " I gather her home to 
my breast." 

Ehodope gave a glad cry, but stirred not. 

" Wait, sit still, my boy. Fair maiden, the 
beauty of the beautiful race is thine, and a cour- 
age which has conquered the world's conqueror. 
Thus I heal thy scars." Pharaoh brought her 
slender wrists together, spanned them in one 
grasp, and drew the milk-white arms over the 
Prince's head. " Pass under the yoke, Crown 
Prince of Egypt, captive to the heroic Greek. I 
set my royal seal on the bonds, and the banner 
over you is love." He lightly kissed Khodope's 
forehead, and pressed it with his signet-ring. 

"I yield me prisoner for life and death." 

The Prince entwined her in his arms, drew her 
close, and, as he leaned to the roseleaf cheek, 
she whispered : 

" Thou art my father, my brethren, and my 
country." 
13 



194 



The Repose in Egypt. 



XIX. 

EN" THE ISLE OF THE LILY : THE STORY OF THE 
THE EE KINGS. 

It was a breathless morning. The flag hung 
moveless over our tent, the river ran still as a 
dream, the palm-leaves were pendant and wilted, 
waving not a feather of green. There was dead 
silence in camp ; each one self-absorbed and list- 
less. To make conversation, I said, apropos of 
nothing, "I wonder, Mi\ Graham, your long 
residence in Eome did not make yon a lover and 
member of the True Church." 

" My nurse used to be a Catholic," answered 
the Antiquary, musingly, like one busy with, 
memory. "She told me many stories of the 
Madonna, and I still repeat the sweet hymn she 
taught me, 

"Holy Mary, mother mild, 
Deign to hear a little child." 

" What is the date ? " asked Thalia, carelessly. 

He colored slightly through the tan and red 
scorch of Syrian sun, for his age is his weak 
point, and slow torture could not extract it from 
him, " It was in a remote epoch, fair lady, and in 
a pre-historic era." 

"I thought you loved dates," she persisted. 

" I do, on occasion, especially those which grow 
near the sacred city of the Prophet." 

"And that far-away dead and gone nurse used 



The Story of the three Kings. 195 

to tell stories of the Madonna; give us one, 
now." 

" With pleasure, if you will settle yourself for 
the time, and honor me with your undivided at- 
tention. You know I do not like straying eyes, 
and restless fingers.' 1 

We disposed ourself comfortably about the 
story teller, never so happy as when called on to 
give up his stored treasures. In the sociability 
of camp, and the absolute security of confidential 
friends, we were free to yawn, doze, move off, if 
the tale proved too long for our patience. 

" Some of the fables have slipped away," said 
the old man, shaking his head sadly. " I cannot 
bring them back. How vivid and real they were 
to my childish eyes; gone now, with things in- 
finitely dearer." He passed his hand across his 
forehead. " The thieving years have stolen them ; 
in vain do I try to hunt up their shining trails, 
they have vanished and forever. As the days 
are long and time of no value, let us speak first 
of the three Kings, heroic and gentle, who 
traveled from afar to worship the Saviour. Do 
you know the story of the Three Kings of 
Cologne?" 

" No, and I dearly love stories of kings, let us 
have it at once before you forget it." 

" No danger of my forgetting the legends 
learned in youth. It is the near and recently 
learned which drop from memory. There are so 
many tales of the Wise Men I hardly know 
which to choose. One Arabic tradition runs 
that in the keeping of their people was a book 



196 



The Repose in Egypt, 



which bore the name of Seth, and in it was fore- 
told the appearance of the Star of the Messiah, 
and the offering of gifts to Him. The book was 
guarded by one family, and handed down from 
father to son through unnumbered generations. 
Twelve men were chosen to watch, for the Star, 
and when one died another was elected to his 
place. 

M These men, in the speech of the land, were 
called Magi. They went each year after the wheat- 
harvest, to the top of a Mountain named the 
Mountain of Victory. It had a cave in it, and 
was pleasant with bubbling springs and leafy 
trees. At last the Star of Prophesy appeared, 
and in it a lovely child, and above him the figure 
of a cross ; and the voice of the Star was heard 
ordering the Magi to go to Judea. They obeyed 
the angelic voice, and journeyed northward two 
years, and in all that time they lacked nothing. 
Neither food nor drink, raiment nor sandals. 
At last the Star sank into a spring at Bethlehem, 
where it may be seen at this day, but only by 
3 7 oung maidens, young as the Yirgin Mother and 
pure of heart. 

"But to begin at the beginning: — It is written 
in the Book of Numbers that when Balaam was 
ordered to curse the Israelites he, by divine 
inspiration, uttered a blessing instead of a curse. 
And he took on the spirit of prophecy and para- 
ble, and said, 1 I shall see but not now, I shall 
behold Him but not nigh. There shall come a 
Star out of Jacob and a Scepter shall rise out of 
Israel.' And the people of that country, sup- 



EGYPTIAN COLUMNS. 



The Story of the three Kings. ity 

posed by Some tobeChaldees or Persians, though 
they were not of the chosen of the Lord, kept 
this saying as a tradition among their rulers, and 
waited with trust and hope for its fulfillment. 

"Princes of old were students and scholars, 
and well skilled in astronomy, as the Pyramids 
prove. They beheld a strange Star unlike its 
bright brethren within range of their instruments. 
It moved in unaccustomed spaces and with 
amazing swiftness, and led by faith they hailed 
it as the predestined Light which was to guide 
them to the One which should lighten the Gen- 
tiles. They prepared in haste, and at once set 
out under its nightly guidance. It is said by 
savans the}' were nine days on the road -to 
Bethlehem." 

" How could calculation be made? " asked the 
eager listener. 

" I do not know. The New Testament record 
is meager, and the expression from the East 
might mean a hundred, or it might mean a thou- 
sand miles. Who knows, who cares ? It matters 
not." 

The Antiquary is one who, in the language of 
the rural districts, can talk like a book ; and 
having lived much more in libraries than in draw- 
ing-rooms, he dropped into quotation naturally as 
Silas Wegg into poetry. Unconsciously, too, he 
assumed the air of speech- making. A debator 
not used to strong opposition, and it was our 
languid habit to let him run on forever with 
slight interruption. 

"I was saying," he continued, "the Wise Men 



The Repose in Egypt. 



came from distant and, perhaps, savage lands. 
They were of diverse nationalities to indicate 
the three races of the known world; in that rep- 
resentation accepting the Saviour of all man- 
kind. 

"Jaspar, or Caspar, was King of Tarsus, whose 
merchants are princes. The gift he gave was 
gold — we may be sure it was much fine gold ; 
the present of an Oriental monarch to a God. 
Melchior, the King of Arabia, brought a camel- 
load of precious perfumes, mostly frankincense, 
(remember I am following the ancient legends) ; 
and Balthazar, King of Saba, or Sheba — the 
land of spices and costly drugs and gums — loaded 
his white camel with myrrh which means, in 
Arabic, 1 bitter.' 

''It is a singular fact," here the Antiquary as- 
sumed the didactic and oratorical, "that when the 
Man of Nazareth was born He was in some 
vague, indefinite way expected by every race 
and in every country. Not the Jews only were 
looking for a Messiah. In India the devotees 
were waiting for the beloved Buddha to re-ap- 
pear. The Greeks had long before erected an 
altar to the Unknown God. The Parsees watched 
at sunrise for the Sosiosh who was to lead men 
to peace, to call the dead from their graves, and 
judge the world, And some think it w^as from 
the Magian priests the three were sent, by God, 
to the stable, and found their Sosiosh in the Son 
of Mary. 

"But that was not an exceptional feeling. It 
is alive and warm, to-day; and humanity is still 



The Story of the three Kings. 199 

stretching out its hands for some Invisible 
Power, that shall come to right the wrongs and 
lieal the sorrows of the whole human family. 
It is because we see the great need of a mighty 
helper that the prayer goes up in the lodge of 
the Eocky Mountain savage, and from the wild 
men of the wilderness. An outcry from the 
same yearning which moves the second advent- 
ists now scattered through the Christian Churches. 
The Mongolian, three thousand years ago, felt 
the need of the Unseen Man who was to bring 
tranquillity, just as the Northmen prayed for 
Odin to come in glancing armor, and kill the 
Wolf of Evil and give the world eternal sum- 
mer. Yes, we need him, to-day, as much as ever," 
continued the old man devoutly. " But this is a 
digression, as our friends the novelists say. To 
resume — 

"It had been written, 1 The Kings of Tar- 
shish and the Isles shall bring presents, and the 
Kings of Sheba shall offer gifts.' There is a 
picture, little known, in the Belvedere Gallery, 
called the 4 Astrologers ' which is the most satis- 
fying of the many I have seen of the Magi. It 
shows a blank, wide landscape circled with 
mountains, no sign of life except three men. 
The first, in Oriental costume, with long, white 
beard, stands in the attitude of speech, holding 
in his hand an astronomical table; next him one 
in the prime of life seems listening to him; the 
third, a youth-like Apollo, seated and looking 
upward, holds a compass. They are watching 
over the Chaldean hills for the miraculous light 



2oo 7 he Repose in Egypt. 

whose first ray piercing the far horizon (called 
in German the 1 Eising Sun is intended to ex- 
press the Star of Jacob. They recognize the 
fulfillment of prophecy, the answer to prayer, 
and they are not afraid. He was come before 
whom L every knee was to bow;' whose name 
was to be set above the powers of magic, the 
mighty rites of sorcerers, the secrets of Mem- 
phis, the drugs of Thessaly, the silent and mys- 
terious murmurs of the wise dial dees, and the 
spells of Zoroaster. 

"The night-marches of the Three were mys- 
tic, wonderful. Some of the old painters have 
it they journeyed with barbaric pomp, a caravan 
with armed followers and banners, long trains of 
attendants, horses and camels, and surrounded 
the manger with Asiatic magnificence. • The 
Venetian artists introduce portraits of grand 
bearded Senators, as the Wise Men, and not un- 
suitably are they models. Those fine Italian 
faces deserve such immortality; and sometimes 
Herod is seen in the background of their pictures, 
overlooking the strange scene with troubled face 
and cruel eyes. 

" One exquisite painting of the Adoration in 
Venice, I think, shows camel heads stretching 
above the slaves in glittering array, who march 
in with vessels of silver and of gold. They 
bear vases, ewers, and censers of flaming metal. 
There are feather fans and gorgeous umbrellas, 
parrots and peacocks, reminders of tributes of- 
fered beforetime at the lion-guarded throne of 
Solomon. The sweeping robes of silk, brocaded 



The Story of the three Kings. 201 

with gold, and ermine mantles of the Kings 
fairly shine on the canvas, and the diadems 
sparkle as though set with actual gems. Yet 
this lavish color and splendor of accessories im^ 
press me less than the familiar ( Adoration of 
the Shepherds,' in their coats of shaggy skins, 
with unkempt hair and bristling beards, in sim- 
ple awe and wonder gazing at the Divine Child. 
All the light in the picture comes from the in- 
fant Saviour, and is reflected like fire on the gar- 
ments and faces of the Shepherds. Mysterious 
shadows suggesting angel presences, flashing rai- 
ment and rainbow pinions. Do you know the 
significance of the presents ? " 

"I do," replied Thalia. " When I was in the 
dismal grind of the Free School, I taught Long- 
fellow's i Three Kings' to my scholars, as a 
Christmas Hymn." 

" Let us have it, now." 

"With all my heart," said Thalia ; and she 
gave it with sweet voice and clear accent. 
When the recitation ended the party cheered 
with lazy clapping of hands, and the Antiquary 
took up his thread again : — 

" Yes : the gold meant that Christ was King. 
The incense that the young Child was a God to 
be worshiped. The myrrh that He was mortal, 
also, and doomed to suffer -death ; it was for the 
burying. A threefold faith, unerring, for from 
the beginning he was the Christ. 

" When the Wise Men had laid their presents 
at His feet in token of loyalty — for that is the 
Eastern acceptation of such oblation — they 



202 



The Repose in Egypt. 



turned homeward, being warned in a dream to 
avoid Herod. They dared not retrace their 
steps ; they must return by some other route to 
avoid the enraged king of Judea, and were at a 
loss which way to go. Their wisdom availed 
not, and just outside the Joppa Gate of Jerusa- 
lem they held council. Their mission had been 
accomplished ; they had seen the Saviour ; they 
had declared their allegiance to him born 
to be King of the Jews ; they had finished 
their work and were perplexed. Far from 
their own people, and among enemies, they 
knew not how to proceed, for the Star 
went out at Bethlehem. One of them stooped 
to drink of the spring, called to this day the 
Well of the Magi, and lo! the miraculous light 
mirrored in the pure water. Not then, as now, 
a mere puddle by the wayside, but a limpid 
fountain. 

" They gladly hailed the familiar signal, 
moving westward, and with thanksgiving and 
courage followed its guidance and were led safely 
home. Being eased of their heavy loads, the 
white camels traveled fast ; they slept by day 
in the tranquil shade of oases and journeyed in 
the opaline twilight across the desert made fairer 
than day. When they reached their own coun- 
try, wherever that may be, they laid clown their 
sumptuous state, and in imitation of the lowli- 
ness of our Lord, born in a manger, yet who 
hath all power in heaven and in earth, they gave 
what they had to feed the poor. 

"They forsook splendid palaces, fine robes, 



The Story of the three Kings, 203 

and prancing horses, and went about in mean at- 
tire ; in sheep-skins and goat-skins, teaching and 
preaching Him whose kingdom is not of this 
world ; the Child-king, the Prince of Peace. 

" The tale runs that to Balthazar were given 
revelations not vouchsafed to the other two. He 
lived many years, bearing about him an atmos- 
phere of meekness and holiness, and the fresh- 
ness of manhood's prime. Age had no power 
over him nor time. The other two died before 
the crucifixion. 

" There is a legend that about forty years later 
St. Thomas was preaching in the East Indies, and 
there met the three Wise Men ; for they were 
never separated after they came together as mes- 
sengers of Christ — an image of the Blessed 
Trinity. The Apostle baptized them, and they 
in turn, went about baptizing, healing, teaching, 
and preaching the Eesurrection and the Life ; 
the finished work of the Babe of Bethlehem. 

"They were those of whom this world is not 
worthy. The recital of their suffering is, to bor- 
row the Arabian phrase, enough to make the dead 
rise in their graves, and children turn gray in 
their cradles. In journeyings often, in perils of 
robbers, in perils by heathen, in perils in the 
city, in the wilderness, in perils among false 
brethren. In weariness and painfulness, in 
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings 
often, in cold and nakedness. St. Paul's account 
of himself well answers for the Magi. In the 
farthest East, then named the Ends of the Earth, 
they fell among barbarous Gentiles; destitute, 



20>4 



The Repose in Egypt. 



afflicted, tormented, they were scourged, stoned ( 
and put to death. Long afterward — " 

"How long?" broke in Thalia. 

" In the fourth century, the Empress Helena, 
who was always on hand to pick up relics, dis- 
covered their tombs and brought the remains to 
Constantinople. During the Crusades, the ro- 
mantic Eed Cross Knights bore their bones with 
reverence and devotion to Milan. From there, 
they were carried away by the Emperor Barba- 
rossa, and presented to his friend and ally, the 
Archbishop of Cologne, The relics were re- 
ceived by the people with great rejoicing. A 
magnificent shrine for enclosing them was soon 
manufactured, and it stands to-day in the Cathe- 
dral which was made to enrich the world with 
dream-like shapes of grace and loveliness. And 
at this shrine, divers glorious miracles have been 
performed in sight of true believers." 

# * * * * 

How well I remember that day — that golden 
day — at Cologne! The print of the Eoman 
yoke is on it yet, for the Church of St. Marie 
holds the site of the Eoman Capitol, and has re- 
sounded with the armed tread of the Legions of 
Trajan. 

Of the treasures of the cathedral nothing com- 
pares with the shrine of the Magi, the tomb be- 
hind the grand altar, where Gothic windows cast 
varied lights on the tessellated pavement and 
along the Ionic pillars. The casket is six feet 
long, modeled as a Eoman Basilica, enriched 
with artistic, sacred figures, carved jewels, and 



The Story of the three Kings. 205 

chased and enameled ornamentation. In the 
French Kevolution it was injured, and in the 
year 1820 a thief secreted himself in the cathe- 
dral when it was closed at evening and spent the 
night plundering the shrine, escaping in the 
morning. It lost about one hundred precious 
stones, but, as we say of rich men, it could af- 
ford to lose. In the mass of jewels, gems, cam- 
eos, a few hundreds are not missed. The carved 
stones belong to classic antique art, and the lapi- 
dary's work is delicate and marvelously fine. At 
the head end of the shrine is a movable panel 
which the keeper slips aside, and behold! three 
bare skulls, each circled with a diamond crown. 

The names are in square letters set with rubies 
which flash like flame : Gaspar, Melchior, Bal- 
thazar — names as familiar to us as household 
words. It was like finding the graves of old 
friends in a foreign cemetery. We had pon- 
dered over their scant history so long, had seen 
the many grand pictures of them, had them in 
heart and fancy for years, and now suddenly to 
see their names in letters of burning jewels! 
What wonder that we started and smiled, say- 
ing, Surely those prophets might grant one little 
miracle to the worshipers who have loved them 
long and well! We lingered about the shrine 
as became believing pilgrims; we marked the 
scene of the baptism of Jesus in the river Jor- 
dan; the panel representing the Eedeemer seated 
on his throne, with his right hand raised and 
holding the Book of Life in his left; the Virgin 
and Child, carved by some devout worker who 



206 



The Repose in Egypt. 



prayed as he wrought and was blessed in his 
labors. It is the finest specimen of mediaeval 
art, and is fitly placed in the first of sanctuaries. 
Not strange that the making of such a structure 
is cloudy with myths and traditions. There are 
the pictured windows of world-wide fame. 0, it 
is a pity to die without seeing them! They 
were clear glass once; angels brushed them with 
their wings, and lo! they took on a many-col- 
ored radiance like sunset dies. Ethereal hands 
finished them in a single night, and vainly does 
mortal artist try to copy tints which were never 
spread on earthly palette. 

And no one knows who designed the famous 
cathedral. The legend-haunted Rhine abounds 
in explanations of the matchless work. It was 
given, so they tell, in a dream of the morning, a 
trance-like state, to a young architect who sold 
his soul to the devil in return for superhuman 
knowledge. Again, they say it was begun by a 
forgotten architect, who, for some crime, was 
struck dead, and the work condemned to stand 
still for centuries, 

I like best to think it was conceived in the 
valley of vision under some divine inspiration. 
Better to me the tale that an emperor, generous 
and munificent, long ago summoned his builders 
together, and promised them eternal fame if they 
would . built a fane which should surpass all 
other fanes. There should be no limit in design, 
no bound to expense, no question as to time. 
Said the monarch to the artisans on bended 
knees before him: "Let its splendor be like the 



The Story of the three Kings. 207 

first temple on Mount Moriah. What I ask is 
perfection.' 7 

Then there was study and strife among the 
architects, and who of mortal birth was worthy 
of such fame as the emperor promised ? At the 
appointed day plans and models were brought, 
drawings and traceries laid at the foot of the 
throne. But as one after another was unrolled, 
the proud emperor said: "They will not do; 
this cathedral is to keep my name in remem- 
brance while the world remains to let its spires 
point upward." 

The designers left the presence-chamber, their 
eyes full of rage and tears of disappointment. 
" Who but the devil can satisfy a king who asks 
impossibilities? " said they. One workman lin- 
gered behind when the train of aspirants had 
departed. He held no roll of parchment or box 
of models; he was an old man, bent and weak, 
wearing a green coat and a gray cap. "Grant 
me this favor, O king," he demanded, in a shrill, 
piping voice, "one day more to work at my 
drawings. I am so near to my ideal, so near. I 
have sought it through prayers and fastings; 
and last night I almost touched the plan, the 
design of a temple which shall eclipse the splen- 
dor of others as the sun outshines the small 
stars. My meditations are nearly ended, but the 
picture I see with the eye of my soul will not as 
yet shape itself to my hand. It is very near." 
He unrolled a slight parchment-from his bosom 
— " Dost thou see aught, O emperor, a shape of 
beauty on this scroll?" 



208 



The Repose in Egypt. 



"I see nothing," said the monarch, coldly, 
"its blank page lias no lines for my sight.'' 

The little old man groaned in anguish and 
trembled. His hand shook as he refolded the 
paper. "It is as I feared; the pencil of light 
was but a snare and a deceit. Only grant one 
day more, most merciful, and if I fail, let me 
go back to my cell, for I have taken Holy 
Orders, and I will spend the few days left of 
threescore and ten in repentance that I let am- 
bition lurk under my gowI." 

The pious emperor graciously spoke : " One 
day more, holy man, I give you ; and in your 
prayers forget not the name of your sovereign, 
who is low as the meanest in the sight of our 
common Master.' 5 

Then the old man kissed the royal hand held 
out to him, and backed like a courtier out of 
the chamber. 

The monk was devout and humble. "What 
am I. that I should win a great name?" he 
asked of himself ; " yet the shepherd on the 
Plain of Midian was no more than the monk 
vowed to perpetual poverty, resting his naked 
feet on the bare floor of the cloister. Blessed 
Virgin. Holy Mary," he prayed, "help the 
weakest of thy children, for my spirit fointeth. v 
pale outline of a superb temple floated 
in air about him. He snatched his pencil 
and unrolled his paper, but the vague, formless 
thing faded like a dissolving view, the dizzy 
pinnacles floated away. Overcome with the 
long mental strain, he burst into tears of despair 



The Story of the three Kings. 209 

and exclaimed: "Into thy hands, Mary, I 
leave it I " Then a sweet peace descended on 
him like a dove. 

He sunk to sleep in his oaken chair, and at 
the mystic hour of midnight, when the veil 
between the two worlds, seen and unseen, grows 
dim, he was roused by an awakening light. It 
was not like the sun, nor yet of the moon ; 
neither was it a lamp nor the light of tapers. 
Awe-struck and enraptured, he sat still while 
his cell filled with the heavenly radiance. His 
eyes gradually became used to the shining won- 
der, and he was aware of the presence of four 
men with starry crowns on their heads. 

The first was a grave man with venerable 
white beard covering his breast ; in his hand he 
held a pair of compasses ; the second, more 
youthful in appearance, carried a mason's square ; 
the third, a strong man with heavy curling 
beard, held a rule; and the fourth, a handsome 
lad with light flowing auburn locks, brought a 
level : thus betokening that they were masters 
of the sacred art of Freemasonry. They glided 
in with solemn, soundless tread, and with them, 
last to come into his dazzled sight, entered the 
saintly Virgin, clothed with celestial beauty, 
carrying in her right hand a lily with silver- 
white flowers. 

"I have heard thy prayer, and am here to help 
thee in thy need," said the Virgin, to the awe- 
stricken architect. "One penalty I lay upon 
thee." 

" What is it, Queen of Heaven? V 
H 



2IO 



The Repose in Egypt. 



" For wordly ambition, and beeivuse thou hast 
said in thy heart, Solomon, I will surpass thee, 
thy name shall be forgotten among the sons of 
men." 

" But," cried the disappointed artisan, "it is in 
hope of fame I have toiled, prayed, suffered. I 
have outwatched Orion, and the sun has looked 
down upon me as it rose. The cathedral of my 
heart and soul is to be the monument which he 
who sees will ask in wonder and amaze, Who 
was the architect ? " 

" There is but one condition," said Mar}^, 
mildly; "choose this instant, the hour passes." 

He covered his face with his hands and wept 
aloud; a few moments his sobs echoed through 
the cell and the struggle was past. He raised 
his eyes to the Blessed Virgin in thankfulness, 
and exclaimed : u If only my holy work lives 
on, I am content that my name is written in 
heaven." 

"I shall write it with my own hand in the 
Book of Remembrance, where the prayers of the 
Saints are recorded, for thou art worthy," said the 
tender voice. "In six centuries, as men count 
time, the cathedral will be finished, hallowed by 
the prayers of such disciples as thou, and radiant 
with angelic light." 

She made a sign of command to the master- 
masons, and they sketched with rapid touches a 
design whieh shone like fire on the bare walls of 
the cell. The forest of stone pillars shot on 
high, the arches curved to meet them, and two 
majestic towers,, flying-buttresses and pinnacles, 



The Story of the three Kings. 211 

went up higher and higher, like winged things, 
into the blue of heaven. In silence the old 
monk (I grieve that his name is lost) contemplated 
the divine revelation. 

When the gray light of dawn stole into hia 
cell the vision softly faded, but the plans drawn 
by the four masters of the art of architecture 
under the eye of the Virgin- Mother were burned 
into his memory. The cool breeze of morning 
fanned his forehead, and the sun cheerily looked 
into his narrow window. It was not the fever 
of a madman nor the delusion of Satan. He 
rose and whispered, " When I wash my forehead 
with fresh dew the mists will clear away." He 
went into the garden and walked an hour, all the 
while in prayer. He returned to his cell and 
spread the untouched parchment. An invisible 
force guided his hand swiftly as light travels. 
Ground-plan and elevation, longitudinal and 
transverse sections, delicate detail drawings wers 
made before noon, and when the minster clock 
struck twelve, the happy architect laid his per, 
fected sketch at the foot of the throne. 

But such a work, firm as adamant, light as> 
lace, lovely as music, is not complete in one, two, 
or three generations, and after exhausting wars 
the masons were dismissed by the government. 
Then at night the ghost of the architect would 
walk the walls, moaning like the wind in the 
pines : " I cannot rest till this work goes on ; my 
bed is hard, it is no place of rest till the men 
come back to their sheds." He was always 
dressed in green (for German ghosts are not sworn 



212 



The Repose in Egypt. 



to white robes), with a gray cap on his head, a 
measuring rod and pair of compasses in his 
hand. 

Not till the times of the good Emperor Wil- 
liam was the finial wreath of stone foliage laid in 
place, just six hundred and thirty -two years to a 
day after the laying of the first foundation. And 
thus was created the fairest temple outside the 
City of Precious Stones. Fit resting place for 
the shrine of the Wise Men from the East — the 
Three Kings of Cologne. 

XX. 

IN THE ISLE OF THE LILY: THALIA'S STORY. 

Breakfast was over. A breakfast of white 
bread, fresh butter, eggs, and coffee. By some 
witchcraft Hassan brought luxury into the Isle 
of the Lily, and we asked no questions about 
the menu. He went to market at unknown hours 
and in mythical regions ; conjured up capital 
stews and salads, ordered them served in the 
dining-tent, and waved them off w r ith his hang- 
ing sleeves. All with the noiseless movement 
peculiar to Egyptians who name themselves mes- 
sengers of the Djinns. 

We were under the palms with carpet, cushions, 
and fans ; the gentlemen to smoke, the ladies 
somewhat conscience-smitten at doing nothing. 
But ours was a Riposa. Avaunt, visions of 
guides and guide books, of " improved" minds, 
of culture, and aesthetics. Dinners, Eeceptions, 
Clubs, Socials are griefs and cares for far dwellers 



Thalia s Siofj/. 



213 



beyond the seas. We are in the all-golden month 
of Rest. 

" This is my time," said Thalia, dropping into 
an attitude of easy grace on a cushion, and fold- 
ing her feet under her as though to the manner 
born. " I am Scherezade, for once. Let us give 
up useful knowledge through one day" (as though 
she had ever tried the search), " and quit hunting 
facts. Your long tale of the Magi, Mr. Graham, 
excuse me, your short story of the Wise Men, 
reminds me of something I read in an odd book 
I had from the Congressional Library." 

" What book ? " asked the man who loves 
accurate information from odd books. 

" I don't remember the name," answered 
Thalia, tartly; " don't expect it. It is in one of the 
two hundred thousand volumes. To begin," — 
she softened her tone — u It was when the Holy 
Family fled from Bethlehem. In the year one, 
if you are anxious about the date," she darted a 
quick glance at Antiquary, who nodded r p;)rov- 
ingly. " The ox and the ass which had stood 
by the manger went with them, and Mary rode a 
gentle white mule named some dreadful Hebrew 
word, I can't remember." 

" Perhaps Eleabthona, if you allow a sug- 
gestion." 

" Like enough that's it, but I can't tell. It 
was very intelligent, and its name meant 1 trust 
yourself to it.' The baby was in her lap, and 
Joseph led the kind creature by the bridle." 

" There were no bridles, it was a leading 
strap." 



214 



The Repose in Egypt, 



" "Well, whatever it was, please don't interrupt 
with such trifles, for . I shall make worse mis- 
takes before I am done. As I was saying, they 
went out by night, warned by the voice heard in 
Joseph's second vision. An angel marched 
ahead, carrying a lantern. I suppose it was 
Gabriel, the Messenger. No. it couldn't have 
been, either, because he always bears the lily." 
She spoke with child-like simplicity and cer- 
tainty. "Anyhow, it was a brave, strong- winged 
angel. There were the poor dead children lying 
on the roadside, crying mothers bending over 
them, trying to hide their living babies from 
the butchers. And they even climbed the hill 
Zion to escape the terrible danger. 

"Jerusalem was then the joy of the whole 
earth, not as we saw it last month. May I 
recite the poem of a Jew over the lost glory of 
the city of his love? " 

" You may if it's not too long. We are too 
weak to bear a long poem." 

u Only sixteen lines showing the difference 
between Mary's time and now. Hear him : — 

" 4 On the noble heights of Zion 

Where were held the golden revels, 
Whose rare splendor once bore witness 
To the glory of the monarch. 

M 1 There by noisome weeds o'ercovered, 
Now you find gray heaps of rubbish, 
Of such melancholy aspect, 
You would fancy they were weeping. 

11 1 And 'tis said they weep in earnest, 
Once in every year, upon the 
Ninth day of the month of Ab. 
Mine own eyes were overflowing, 



Thalia's Story, $1$ 

44 1 As I saw the heavy tear-drops 
Glittering on the mighty ruins, 
As I heard the lamentation 
Of the broken Temple-columns.' 

" To resume," continued Thalia. " The young 
Child and his mother and St. Joseph went 
along, guided by the angel. Of all the angels, I 
love Gabriel best " — she mentioned him as a 
dear friend — " perhaps because he is so often 
named, he seems more familiar than the rest." 

" Yes," added Antiquary, humoring her mood, 
"he is a prophet, and explains visions, and he 
declared to Mary, 1 1 am Gabriel that stand in 
the presence of God,' as though he were nearer 
the throne than other angelic beings. He fore- 
told the birth of Samson, and among Moslem's 
has the twofold character of Saint and Prophet. 
Mohammed selected him as his teacher and in- 
spire r, and it was this messenger who gave him 
the Koran, and though the prophet could not 
read caused him to understand it." 

The scholar continued with gravity and dig- 
nity respecting the fancies of the young enthu- 
siast : — 

"But the Prince of guardian spirits, the 
watchful one of all humanity, is Eaphael. He 
is probably the one who guided the pilgrims on 
their flight from Bethlehem. According to Mil- 
ton he was sent by the Creator to warn Adam, 
and he breakfasted with the first pair one fore- 
noon in Eden. The early Christians tell that he 
appeared to the shepherds by night with good 
tidings of great joy which shall be for all people. 

"In the Pitti is a picture of him, robed in 



2l6 



The Repose in Egypt, 



white, with wings of a deep rose color, and a 
casket slung over his shoulder by a golden belt, 
to denote that he is a traveler, and the rescuer 
of such as lose their path. The friend of the 
wayfarer, the young, the straying. His flowing 
locks, of deep auburn tint, are wonderfully beau- 
tiful, the face serene and seraphic. But I inter- 
rupt your story. Pardon." 

" Yes, a mere brief parenthesis. As I was 
telling, Herod heard of their flight, and sent sol- 
diers after the Holy Family. When they were 
some way from the city they came to a field 
where a man was sowing wheat. 

"Many days passed in a holy manner had 
given the Virgin wisdom, and she was at no 
loss what to do. She was not as other women, 
as her Son was not as other men. So she cried 
out to the sower, 'If soldiers come this way and 
ask if strangers such as we have passed, and 
have ye seen us? you must answer, Such per- 
sons have appeared, it was when I was sowing 
this grain.' The man was a rough fellow, 
dressed in skins, and must have looked fierce 
and shaggy in the dark. He saw these were no 
common pilgrims, and this mother, calm and 
confident among the lamentation and weeping and 
great mourning, must have been moving under 
some high inspiration." 

"You are right there, my dear." 

11 Thank you," said Thalia gratefully. "I do 
not know if the leading angel w^as visible to his 
eyes or not ; perhaps he was permitted a glimpse 
of glossy wings or a hint of some bright pres- 



Thalia s Story, 



ence. He bowed low in salutation, saying, 
4 Peace be unto thee and thine, young Mother; 
may the son in thy bosom be a wise man and a 
just, and stand in the gates with the elders of 
the city.' 

"He felt that something strange was going to 
happen, and was so sure that he determined to 
sit up and watch. Soon there was a rustling, 
creeping sound, the ground was moving, not in 
noise and earthquake, but shaking and stirring. 
The grains slipped through their husk, the field 
was alive with growth. By midnight the wheat 
came up to his knees ; the sower was amazed, 
but not afraid. It grew to his waist. The mir- 
acle went on all night : the stalk, the blade, the 
full ear, and when the sun rose it was on a rich 
harvest, with ripe yellow grain ready for the 
reaper. 

" The husbandman sent a boy to his hut on the 
hillside, where a fig-tree shaded the spring, with 
words to quiet his mother, and directed him to 
bring his sickle. 1 Great things have been done 
to-night, and I must not leave this post till I de- 
liver the message of the woman with the baby.' 
He held the message of the Virgin as a sacred 
command. 

" And sure enough in the morning watch came 
the soldiers — bloody murderers, like ravening 
wolves — and inquired, 4 Have you seen a well- 
favored young woman, with a child in her arms, 
traveling this way ? She was seated on an ass 
led by an old man, and they were moving in 
haste.' The joyful reaper who was reaping his 



The Repose in Egypt, 



harvest in great wonder and admiration, waved 
his blade high in the air so it a made a circle of 
light, and answered, 1 Yes, I saw them not very 
long ago.' 

" 1 How long since ? ' asked the head soldier. 
"He replied, quietly, 1 When I was sowing this 
wheat.' 

" Then the officers of Herod ordered the sol- 
diers back to Jerusalem, and left off hunting the 
Holy Family." 

" A pretty fable," said Antiquary " but " (con- 
trarily,) " it doesn't hang together well. The his- 
torian has not kept up the unities." 

"Why not, sir? " said Thalia. She calls him 
Sir when she wishes to be crushing. 

" The records make it appear that Herod felt 
he had destroyed the Child in the murder of the 
Innocents at Bethlehem." 

" Well, well, I think you might let my stor}^ 
go without looking into it as a fact. How can 
Scherezade continue, if the Caliph bothers her 
with suspicious questions? " 

And she smiled and pouted her pretty lip a 
little. Scherezade herself was not more charm- 
ing than our spoiled darling. Never did the 
Sultana look prettier than she in the muslin 
dress dotted with purple, the palm-tree shade 
casting restless flecks on her head, making a 
glory of her hair. 

"Let it pass then. I shall have to ask your 
unquestioning faith in the robber-story promised 
yesterday." 

" No time like the present, let us have it now." 



Thalia s Story. 



219 



" Yes, I was leading up to that, as the lectur- 
ers say. Now for it. At the close of a weary 
day in the flight when they looked not back, 
pressing on as fast as the slow-plodding ass could 
move, the fugitives stopped at the open door, or 
rather entrance, of a cave, the stronghold of a 
Bedouin chief, who was, after the manner of his 
tribe, a thief and a robber. The Arab has not 
changed since the times of Herod. He wel- 
comes the stranger to his black tent or robber 
fastness, as one having the right by law to all 
that is within it. Be the guest his worst enemy, 
he will slay his best kid and bring forth his 
choicest stores to treat him ; will serve him 
three days with sacred hospitality, as it is com- 
manded; will set him fairly on his way; and 
then, by another law equally respected, kill him 
if he can. Should you plead that you are a 
harmless, defenceless traveler, his answer is, that 
you have no business to be unarmed and defence- 
less ; the ancient proverb, t In the Desert no man 
meets a friend,' should be known to you, and 
acted on accordingly. He has a long lance, a 
swift horse, a keen eye ; who has none should 
stay at home. He looks on books with haughty 
scorn, and quotes a favorite saying, 1 There is 
more life in one word from the mouth than in 
one thousand from the pen.' 

" The Holy Family did not think to beard the 
old lion in his den, hard rider and deadly archer 
as he was; but the descendant of Ishrnael hap- 
pened to be standing in the entrance in the cool 
of the day, and he beckoned them to stop, and 



220 



The Repose tn Egypt. 



received them into the recess of the mountain 
which, was his present refuge. 

" Like all limestone formations the hills of 
Palestine abound in caves. The remotest histo- 
ries treat of them as hiding-places and burial- 
grounds. There is a long line of cave-tombs, 
partly natural, partly artificial, openings in the 
rocky walls of Judean valleys, beginning with 
the cave of Machpelah, and ending with the grave 
of Lazarus which, in the reading, was a cave, 
and a stone lay upon it; and the Holy Sepulcher 
hewn in the rock wherein never man before was 
laid. They were defences for insurgents and 
outlaws ; and rebel hordes yet fortify themselves 
in the aDcient underground chambers. 

" My nurse used to enlarge on the horrors of 
the sepulchral grotto, where torches flamed with 
feeble flicker, lighting a little way in with red 
flame that was soon overcome by the pitch-black 
darkness. It had awful echoes, too. so that 
when anyone spoke loudly, the sound would 
come back like roaring of hungry beasts, or 
voices of dreadful demons hidden in the dark. 
I generously spare you the recital of the terrors 
with which she filled the mountain-side, all 
seamed with rocky fissures and yawning rents. 

" The chief who could ride full-faced against 
the spear-blades and not blench or quiver, min- 
istered to the dusty, travel-worn pilgrims, with 
courtesy, gave them of seethed goat's flesh, 
black bread and dried sugary dates. All he 
had, the gaunt Arab spread before the unknown 
wanderers, and the ass was loosed and turned 



Thalia s Story. 



221 



out to graze on the camel-tliorn. The robber's 
wife came down from her pride of place as a 
chieftainess, saluted the Virgin kindly, and 
brought water for her to bathe the child. 

" In that thirsty region water is life, and not 
the smallest portion of the precious fluid is 
wasted. So when Mary had bathed the infant 
Jesus, the Bedouin mother used the same water 
for her own child, and lo ! it took on the bright- 
ness of the sun, and for a moment the whole 
cavern was illuminated. Then the woman knew 
that, like the Friend of Guests in Mamre, they 
had entertained angels unawares, and sooner or 
later a blessing would descend on the tribe. 
They slept in peace and safety ; the spear of the 
robber, seasoned in many battles, was planted 
before the door, and the chief himself went a 
day's march, and sent them on their way rejoic- 
ing. His eyes were too sinful to see the angel 
guard which journeyed in the airs about them, 
but the heavenly watchers were on duty, vigi- 
lant and well-pleased. 

" The robber's boy grew to be a bad man like 
his father, only wilder and worse. He scrupled 
not to murder the stranger guest as soon as he 
passed beyond the shadow of the tent, or the 
portal of the cave. The wayfarer in the moun- 
tain pass was his prey ; unheeded the cry of 
children, the prayers of women. A notorious 
criminal, he was finally overtaken, brought to 
judgment, tried and condemned to death on the 
cross at Jerusalem. When the Great Tragedy 
was enacted on Calvary, the angel nature whigb 



222 



The Repose in Egypt. 



caine to him in the baptismal water was stirred. 
His life passed in review before him, as it does 
to the eyes of the dying. He remembered his 
sinless childhood, and the water made a saving 
grace thirty-three years before by the touch of 
Mary's Son. He called to the Man of Nazareth 
on the ieross beside him, 1 Lord remember me 
when Thou earnest into Thy kingdom ' — and in 
the horror of darkness and the crash of the 
earthquake was borne to his ear already dull in 
death, the gracious words. k Verily I say unto 
thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.' 
The robber's child was the penitent thief.'' 

" You tell the story as if you believed it." 

"Yes: but not so implicitly as 1 did when 
first heard. The cave was near Eamlah. and is 
still in evil repute, a favorite lurk for brigands. 
It was the Eamlah of the Lion Heart, and the 
Crusaders used to visit the shrine, — for such it 
was — with devotion and there renew their vows. 
Do you think there is harm in believing these 
things, myths though they be? " 

"There can be none. Better to trust over- 
much, to believe- in miracles and dreams, than 
drop into the sneer and scoffing which destroy 
every sentiment of reverence. Yes, better bow 
down to the San and Moon, Baal and Ashtaroth, 
than crush the sense of worship out of the 
heart by neglect of all religion. If only 
a plaster-image of Mary by the wayside, to 
which the Italian peasant uncovers his head, it 
is the sign of a reverence for something deal 
and sacred, away down deep in his heart." 



The Antiquary s Story. 223 



XXI. 

STILL IN THE ISLE OF THE LILY: THE ANTI- 
QUARY'S STORY. 

The Turks of Constantinople tell that on 
Easter mornings, the Faithful at prayer in the 
Mosque of St. Sophia have heard hymns of 
Christians who once held the Church of Justin- 
ian, and fought and died in its defence. Moslem 
worshipers, on that day, kneeling with face 
toward Mecca, are conscious of mystical presen- 
ces in the high, hollow dome overhead. It is 
gorgeous in dark color, vast and vague, not 
silvery like the jewel-glass of the North, and in- 
visible singers fill the space with a delicate 
music, sweet past telling. Such as we may sup- 
pose pale wanderers, spirits freed might breathe 
in their lost temple of holiness, wrested from 
them by the conquering sword of Islam. 

The Infidel never notes this blissful music. 
It is only sounded in the ear of the true believer 
for whom the Blackeyed hold their predestined 
places in Paradise. Perhaps the musicians are 
messengers of the strong- winged angel, in im- 
perial purple robe and red shoes, who revealed 
the plan of St. Sophia to the architect. The 
happy builder who exclaimed, " Glory to God 
who has judged me worthy to complete this 
work. Solomon, I have surpassed thee ! " May- 
be it is one of the psalms the devout Constan- 
tine chanted with the priests, after each twelve 



224 



l^he Repose in Egypt, 



layers of Ehodian bricks were laid. The words 
are unknown, but the true Moslem hears that 
marvelous music every Easter morning, as some- 
thing wafted through the open door of Para- 
dise. 

And thus, one night, I thought we might 
almost catch the minstrelsy of the vanished oc- 
cupants of the Isle of the Lily who sleep in 
forgotten graves. In dreams and wakeful visions 
we might hearken to hymns of priestesses, grace- 
ful and sweet as the lotus held in their hands, 
and to the subdued voices of men strong as lions, 
v y the ancient stiff head-o-ear, and bearing; 
ii ,e to the water-god who ruled the Seasons 
an ne harvests. Slow and solemn their steps, 
low. mysterious their intoning as they worked 
their miracles of power. 

The night I speak of, the moon obscured all 
but the first stars which shone large and lustrous 
like clear white lamps. We could see to read by 
the silver radiance, but we had no wish to read; 
we were to forget the world. Determined to 
have absolute rest in that little strip of earth, we 
found our thoughts concentrated on our past lives 
and our own experiences, the idleness of intro- 
spection. 

The Simoom had blown through the day. 
Puffs of hot air came sighing and sobbing over 
the blank sand levels, making the air murky 
with yellow dust carried on the wings of the 
wind. The Arabs call it Khamseen, a burn- 
ing breath, often deadly as plague or pestilence. 
T w"- light fell as balm on parched leaf and heated 



The Antiquary s Story. 



225 



plain ; the wind changed, and evening came, with 
refreshing to withering plant and panting 
animal. 

"I wish," said one, " this was a floating Isle, 
and that we could waft it away to some other 
river or sea when the desert wind fans it." 

" Yes, or that some miraculous shade might be 
drawn over the sun, or strange verdure cool and 
dim the sky, as the green-winged bird came be- 
fore the eyes of Thalaba and veiled them in the 
desert." 

" While we are at it, we may as well wish for 
a bracing breeze at once ; one of the gracious gales 
heaven sends to the verdant vales bounded by 
mountains." 

We had noticed that the Antiquary had been 
restless and moody through the long hours, and 
supposed it was the quieting effect of the Simoom. 
We felt the force of Isaiah's texts, and of Job, 
when he says, "How thy garments are warm, 
when He quieteth the earth by the south wind." 
Our garments were not merely warm — they 
were hot and intolerably heavy and uncomfort- 
able. We were lounging beside the palms, 
more languid than usual under the influence of 
the dreaded blast we name Sirocco. 

Said Antiquary softly, and with a sense of 
weariness. " I have been wandering in imagina- 
tion among mountain airs to-day, and drinking 
at secret wells of the coldest and brightest of 
waters." 

"At Tivoli, you mean." 
15 



226 The Repose in Egypt, 

" No, no, many a hundred miles away from 
Tivoli. At Monterey in Old Mexico." 

" I did not know you had visited that un= 
happy country." 

He rose, shifted his camp-stool, so as to place 
his profile to the strong moonlight, making his 
shadow fall, a sharp silhouette on the level 
ground. 

" Would you know me by that ? " He pointed 
to the image, and spoke with a sort of wistful 
ness in his tone. 

"Never, I should not guess if I had a hundred 
guesses, who is the substance." 

"Yet it is more like me than the man, or 
rather boy of twenty years, at Moutere\ r . A 
Lieutenant in the Mexican war, thirty-six years 
ago." 

" You a soldier ! I never knew it." 

"No; unlike most soldiers, I rarely refer to 
that passage in my history. \Ye were the First 
Indiana Volunteers. And while regiment after 
regiment passed to active service in the field of 
glory and conquest, ours remained here and 
there, stationed to guard stores. How we chafed 
and fretted under orders which kept us idle in 
the dreary round of camp duty in the enemy's 
country! Yet we lost more men by sickness 
than any other regiment did in brittle. To re- 
sist the depressing influence of hospital and sur- 
geon taxes a man's resources to their utmost 
Reckless gambling and hard drinking take the 
place of wholesome work and recreation fairly 
won by labor. It is most demoralizing to heart 



The Antiquary' s Story. 227 



and mind, and the contagion of spirit is deadlier 
than that of the body." 

He paused, and his face changed strangely. 
His voice sunk to a whisper. " It was in Mon- 
terey I had my romance." 

We respected his feeling, and for a moment 
nothing was heard but the low wash of the 
wavelets and the cry of a jackal from the neigh- 
boring Island. 

"Mine is but the old, old story — 1 She was 
beautiful, and he loved her.' Would you care to 
hear it ? " He spoke modestly, as one not used 
to intruding the capital I on his audience. 

"That we should. There is nothing half so 
interesting as a glimpse of the interior life. It 
is worth many an hour in the unmeaning round 
called Society, where we speak in platitudes as 
though words were indeed made to conceal 
thoughts." 

"You are quite right ; but our training makes 
it a sort of indelicacy to unlock the bridal cham- 
bers of the heart. Our English cousins blurt out 
family histories we would die to hide. I cannot 
understand Froude holding up the naked soul of 
Jeannie Carlyle — fondest and proudest of women 
— to the public gaze ; and Bulwer giving us the 
vices of his nearest of kin, till the relatives of 
his mother rose in indignation at the shameful 
exposure. And all for money. Whatever 
American faults may be, profaning the sanctity 
of home and making a market of gossip no 
outer ear should hear are not among them. We 
guard them like criminal revelations — those fire- 



228 



The Repose t7t Egypt \ 



side tragedies — to open them to the world is to 
make common a sanctuary.'' 

We disposed ourselves in the attitude of 
listeners. Thalia smoothed her cushions. I 
wrapped a scarf round my throat ; the speaker 
bared his head, throwing his palmetto hat on the 
ground, his thin gray hair stirring lightly in the 
pleasant breeze. 

" You would not imagine these the blonde, 
wavy locks of a romantic youth." He shook 
his head, sadly. "A reader of Moore and of 
Byron, whose chief affectation was quoting c 1 
have loved the world nor the world me, 1 and 
luxuriating in a soft melancholy." 

" Verily, I should not," said Mistress Thalia. 

" Only the angels you love, the white-winged 
Angel of the Eesurrection can smooth these fur- 
rows from my forehead, these silver threads out 
of my hair. In Monterey there was an old 
Spanish Cathedral, crumbling in dimness and 
neglect, which has — or rather had forty years 
ago — a wonderful chime of bells. When we 
were encamped outside the city its peals reached 
us at evening, and the Angelus was never sweeter, 
not even in Florence, sounding from the glorious 
tower which Charles the Fifth said should be 
kept under glass, and exhibited only on holi- 
days. I never hear it but it makes me a dreamer 
of dreams, of what was and what might have 
been, but for one old man's stubbornness." 

He stopped, hovering about his subject as 
though scarcely knowing how to begin. 

" The ringing of bells is to many no more 



The Aniiquarf s Story. 



than the breaking of the surf on the shore; with 
you it is the call of the church to prayer. With 
me the Angelus is a melody which never dies 
from my heart, for it is forever associated with 
love." 

I started slightly, unconsciously. 

" Yes, you may well stir with surprise at the 
idea. I do not look like a subject for fiery 
absorbing passion; but," he pointed to the 
shadow on the ground, " that Shade was once 
of a different being. I was one of your hand- 
some men, proud, restless, ambitious, with a 
poet's heart without his power to sing. That 
Shadow cannot answer to your ideal of me any 
more than the bare branches of your beach-trees 
in winter can give a suggestion of verdure, the 
smile of spring on every bough." 

" Would you mind telling us?" 

" With pleasure — and pain. We were a 
lawless set — we soldiers encamped near Mon- 
terey in 1848. Discipline was loose, and some- 
times under leave, oftener without, I used to 
frequent a brook not far from camp and add a 
mess of trout to our dinner of bacon and beans. 
The brook headed in a delicious spring, shaded 
by dripping ferns, tangles of wild blue larkspur, 
and yellow lilies. One of a series of springs 
, which fed the dancing, flashing meadow-brook 
that gurgled among purple flags and ended in a 
narrow river. 

" I loved the place. Its loneliness was a relief 
against the ennui of camp, and the coarse games 
and jests of my messmates. Many a pleasant 



230 The Repose in Egypt. 

hour I spent there alone, hearing friendly mes- 
sages, as he who seeks Nature must ever, and so 
had solace from much annoyance. Further 
away were dark chapparal thickets of thorn and 
underbrush, so close set a coyote could not crawl 
through them, and beyond the mountains were 
flat pastures, measureless as air. 

"Beside this spring I met my fate: and never 
did destiny come in fairer form. It was at the 
close of a summer day, hot but not lifeless, for 
the mountain freshness never quite forsakes that 
atmosphere. I stood among gray lichens and 
water-grass of golden green, arranging the bait 
on my hook, when I heard voices speaking 
Spanish; not the mixed patois of the Mexican, 
but the finer accent of pure Castilian. It was 
the first time my solitude had been broken. 
Both voices were feminine ; one childish in 
pitch, the other in the harshness which is one of 
the harshest things we submit to from age. 
With recollections of College Latin, a gram- 
mar, and the help of a priest lean and hungry as 
Cassius, I had picked up enough Spanish to com- 
prehend ordinary talk. This ran on a lost bird 
which had flown away, and they were pursuing 
with the help of a man servant. They came so 
near I could hear the crackling twigs snap be- 
neath their tread, but I stood silent in shelter 
under the bank which served for a roof. 

"I heard tfiem trample in the undergrowth ; 
cries of delight from the childish voice, cautions 
to the man Popo to be careful ; the screaming of 
the bird captured and put back in his cage with 



The Antiquary s Story. 231 



lavish endearing wards of which the Spanish 
language is full. The sounds gradually receded, 
and I stole from my hiding-place, not feeling 
guilty, not I ; but delighted with the adventure 
if such it could be called. 

"The little mistress of the bird was young, 
but not too young for my interest. I deter- 
mined to see. I struck the blind trail through 
the mezquit grove, and saw a fat woman in the 
broader path ahead. Boldly but cautiously I 
followed, and noted, obscured by the ample 
width of the matron, a shape of girlish 
slenderness. How young, I could not guess, 
but old enough (though for that . matter 
foreign women are always old enough), to be 
watched. Both were dressed in mourning, and 
were followed by a man carrying a gilded bird- 
cage, and in it a green paroquet. My fishing- 
came to a conclusion abrupt as the reading of 
Dante's lovers. I strolled back to quarters, 
feeling sure who the unknown was. 

" In a walled garden, about two miles away, 
stood a gloomy, tumble-down mansion, ricketty, 
with loose lattices, called by the natives, El Pa- 
lacio. It was occupied by a Spaniard who, gos- 
sips said, had fled from political storms to the 
New World and taken his residence in this cas- 
tle or country-place which, till then, had long 
been desolate and tenantless. I had noticed its 
wall of rough stone bristling with cactus-hedges, 
behind which bananas waved their green flags, 
and oleanders showered pink blossoms in their 
season. I had scented magnolia and orange- 



232 



The Repose in £gyj>t. 



bloom in the path, and old rose -vines and ivies 
straggled over the wall, and softened the aspect 
of the threatening cactus-prickles. The upper 
half of the house was visible from the street; 
of creamy stucco, originally the tint of Milwau- 
kee brick, with colonnade and many columns 
round an interior court, the usual design of 
Spanish houses. Traditions of by-gone splendor 
were not lacking. It had belonged to a Duke 
of Albuquerque, of noble and decayed family, 
who lost a fortune by gambling, and had re- 
turned to Castile. It had been in evil repute 
some years, being haunted by the ghost of a lady 
who died of a broken heart or of insanity. 
Among a superstitious people, idle to the last 
degree, the stories gained in credence, and dread- 
ful tales were told in lurid and blood-curdling 
exaggeration. En fin El Palacio was peopled 
with baleful specters. 

"The name of the present occupant was Felipe 
Yelasco, Hidalgo, which title means pure, Cath- 
olic, Spanish blood without a taint of Jew or 
Moor. I learned by careless inquiry that the 
wife died a few months before our army of occu- 
pation arrived, leaving one child, a daughter, 
doubtless the young girl I had followed through 
the forest. She was clad with many graces, and 
unconscious witchery thrilled her captive 
through and through. That night I had some- 
thing to think of beside camp duty ; the usual 
evening lesson of Father Olmedo had a fresh 
and vital interest In my stolen march I had 



The Antiquary's Story. 233 

caught glimpses of an oval olive face with dark- 
est eyes." 

"Like those of Oriental women," I inter- 
rupted. 

"Not at all," rejoined Antiquary, testily. 
"There are no eyes like the girls of Cadiz; you 
cannot have forgotten Byron's poem. You must 
see them to know how lovely human eyes can be. 
The Senorita Velasco wore a broad straw-hat 
tied under the chin with a ribbon of lace." He 
went on, dreamily, as though talking to himself, 
" I see her yet, I who have forgotten so many 
things. A trailing vine with blue blossoms 
twisted round the crown gave a woodland, 
nymph-like air which suited well my romantic 
fancy. 

"I was dazzled, enchanted. In fancy I scaled 
the wall of El Palacio, traversed the neglected 
garden, passed the ruined fountain bordered with 
weeds, to the interior court, where in the lazy 
afternoons she swung in a hammock like Mar- 
jorie Daw. But I forget, this was a generation 
ago, and Marjorie's father must have been a baby 
then. I must see this Eose of Castile; dash off 
with her, the lady of my choice; her father, if 
he opposed, must be safely lodged in a deep, 
black dungeon. Through the night, through 
the day we would gallop away into some fabled 
field Elysian, I hardly knew where. As I said 
I was born with the poetic temperament. Do 
not laugh." 

" I was not laughing." 

14 Not to be blamed if you were, I absolve you. 



234 



The Repose in Egypt. 



It does not follow that I was a poet. The fac- 
ulty is distinct as the faculty of feeling music is 
distinct from the power of producing it. The 
hearer who cannot whistle a tune may tremble 
and turn cold with emotion at the divine sym- 
phonies of Beethoven. But this is a parenthe- 
sis. I did essay writing verses, that was later. 
Let us not anticipate. 

"The night of my adventure was cloudless, 
and I lay outside the tent wrapped in my 
blanket, and looked at the stars which are the 
poetry of heaven, asking what name had been 
written for me among those bright leaves of des- 
tiny. Absence had weakened the images of 
sweet girl-graduates in white dresses and blue 
ribbons. My future was a blank page but for 
this unknown nymph, this Egeria by the foun- 
tain. In the vanity of early youth I supposed 
myself an object of much consequence to the 
planets above, and one to tell grandly on the 
destinies of the orb to which I belong by birth- 
right, I had little money and no fame ; but 
with strength, education, energy, I believed the 
world was all before me where to choose. I was 
the peer of any proud Hidalgo in Spain or out 
of Spain; and I fell to the sound sleep of perfect 
health counting the shining Pleaides, and trying 
to trace the figure of the Scorpion. 

"I became more solitary than ever. Often as 
possible I slipped away from camp to pass the 
Enchanted Palace, watching for the flutter of 
ribbons and the tread of light steps. It is not 
too much to say I was richly rewarded. I found 



The Antiquary s Story. 



235 



my Inamorata was in tlie habit of making a 
daily walk with her two attendants. I could 
not risk a surprise, yet determined to know this 
Castilian beauty — Andalus all over, from the 
straight black hair, braided down her back, to the 
high-heeled shoes of the springing feet. Ah 
those feet! My heart was under them as she 
walked. 

"I must enter the garden odorous with bloom, 
but my approach must be delicate, for she was 
close kept and shy as a humming bird. Daintily, 
guardedly, must advances be made. Let that 
aristocratic old father, with his tremendous nose 
and bald head, look out. I was Lieutenant in 
the Grand Army of Occupation, and away on 
the other side of the town from the topmost 
peak of the Sierra de la Silla our colors were 
triumphantly waving, planted there after every 
house was a barricade taken, almost every room 
a scene of blood. The city in its mountain set- 
ting was a jewel bought with a great price, and 
no holiday soldiering was that which brought its 
surrender. 

" At twenty all things are possible. I deter- 
mined to put my courage to the test and stake 
all on one audacious move. The plan was sim- 
ple enough: to go bravely up in broad daylight, 
and announce myself an amateur artist, a trav- 
eler who begged to look at some fine pictures in 
El Palacio, said to be by Velasquez. 

" Fate kindly turned that venture out of my 
hand, and gave me a better part than the mas- 
quers I had thought to play. The old gentle- 



236 The Repose in Egypt. 

man took a constitutional ride daily, on a skit- 
tish, little mustang. They are always treacher- 
ous, and in one of his rides the vicious beast 
shied, jumped, unseated the Hidalgo by the road- 
side, giving him a jar which knocked him sense- 
less." 

" You speak of the ancient Hidalgo with a sort 
of acidity." 

11 Yes, I hated him because he was father of a 
peerless maiden, so hard and stern as not to 
allow unknown Lieutenants in the Grand Army 
of Occupation the freedom of his house. O 
dreams of twenty ! how vain and foolish, how 
sweet and strong they are! My heart was rich 
and fall to overflowing. I tell you," repeated 
the story-teller, vehemently, M I loved that child 
at once, with devotion entire as though I had 
known her through years. A treasure wildly 
wasted." 

He paused a moment, a strange bird like a 
whippoorwill answered its mate in a near marshy 
thicket. Sad sound as the voices of the* night 
are ever. "What with the love-tale, the white 
moonlight, the dim mystery of Egypt about us 
almost shaping out a presence from the unseen, 
we listened en rapport with K"ature and each 
other. 

M The chances befriended me. When the mus- 
tang threw the cruel father, (of course he was 
cruel,) by the roadside, luckily I was on hand to 
help pick him up. The groom called some pass- 
ing porters; a rude litter was improvised, and I 
marched beside it straight into fairy land. The 



The Antiquary s Story. 237 

gate was opened. I must be more prudent than 
daring, and left my card with the servant and 
with it dropped the artist scheme. 

" My glance at the interior had revealed a 
tangled, neglected garden, gay with poppies 
choked in weeds ; a shabby mansion, splashed 
with peeling stucco which betra} r ed red brick- 
work beneath. The veranda was bright with 
clinging vines in masses of bloom. Thus I 
thought this fresh young vine makes sweet the 
common air as she twines her life with her 
father's. The simile is not novel, but was newer 
to me then than now. It is since hacked to a 
sickly sentiment. The next day at mess I was 
startled by a note written in stiff, clerkly hand. 
The Senor Felipe Yelasco had not recovered 
from his hurt, but wished to thank, in person, 
Lieutenant Graham, who had saved his life. 
Would he call. 

" My heart had never stirred from its twenty 
years of steady strong tramp, never till that hour. 
It beat on my breast like the long roll of the 
drum. My nerves shook as they never have 
vibrated to earthquake or battle. I must have 
turned pale, for my comrades (they all are in 
their graves, now) rallied me on my letter. No 
bad news they hoped. 

"I answered in a stunned, bewildered way; 
and in faultless costume soon set out, seeming 
literally to tread on air. It was morning on mount- 
ain, river, and plain, and morning in the young 
man's heart. Visions vivid as sure prophecies 
uprose before mo, I floated my paper-boat on a 



238 



The Repose in Egypt. 



summer sea, its freightage roses and roselike 
youth. The hero who saved Hidalgo Velasco 
from impending death at the heels of a kicking, 
biting mustang, was chivalrous, adoring as any 
knight errant of old. A sweet madness was it ? 

He stopped abruptly, u Do you know it is near 
midnight? " 

He wound his watch, replaced his palmetto 
hat, and we went each to his own place in silence, 
while the Antiquary paced up and down the 
beach like one in acute pain, now and then look- 
ing up to the starry blue as he turned on his 
heel with the movement which betrays the 
soldier. 1 wonder we had not noticed it before, 
that habit the result of military training. 

As we advance in years a certain sentiment 
which attended early youth comes back with 
singular force. The circle of existence nearly 
complete, we look across a narrow gap to the 
beginning, where the start was made, and feel 
some portion of the freshness of the morning, 
when the meads were in bloom. 

Several days went by, and the past was plainly 
the present with our friend the Antiquary. We 
made no allusion to his sudden opening of the 
Book of Eevelation, but tried, by gentle touches 
which he was quick to perceive, to assure him 
that we appreciated his confidence. 

Every one knows the subtle power of loneli- 
ness to bring out hidden secrets. Many a tale 
of the agonies, mysteries, battles, loves, and 
hates of life, is told in the silence of night which 
would never have been confessed had not the 



The Antiquary s Story. 



239 



witching hour created the beguiling opportunity. 
Every woman knows the temptation, and 0, how 
many know the repentance, apt to follow such a 
trust. The fear it will be told, either in forget- 
fulness or heedlessness, by the bosom friend, as 
indeed it usually is, comes with the common 
light of clay. Where there is no crime involved 
sooner or later there is a betrayal. 

In the Isle of the Lily, the unfabled Isle of 
the Blest, where eternal Summer holds her gold- 
en pomp, there was an effort to forget the world. 
We soon discovered that to loll and to dream 
were not the surest way. Rushing life in some 
swift current would drown habitual thought; 
but oblivion is not in languid airs spicy with 
scents, that touch the black keys of memory 
and set its tenderest chords vibrant. 

After the fiery day, the mild night is potent 
as old music to conjure up old faces and places. 
We knew our Antiquary would give the sequel 
of his story in good time, and we were sure the 
good time was near. The next week after the 
beginning of our chapter, we sat under the palms 
again, by the waning moon's light, and he took 
up the thread as though it had not been 
dropped : — 

" I was telling my romance," he began, abruptly, 
after long silence none cared to break. A sim- 
ple enjoyment of earth, and sky and river. 
" Yes, the Sultan has beguiled Scherezade." 

" We remember," I said, " and I have had it 
in mind ever since." 

M You thought me a foolish boy, I dare say." 



240 



The Repose in Egypt. 



11 No, I only thought you — young.' 5 
"Ah, yes, young. I left off going to the 
Palace of the Hidalgo. Happy, O, so happy! 
I found my natural enemy with his forehead 
bound in brown paper and aromatic vinegar, 
lying on a settee in the veranda. Glass doors 
opened from it into a vast, empty drawing-room 
cheerless with dark wood-carving, and tarnished 
gilding. Of the haut noblesse he bore an air of 
faded elegance becoming a man stiff in the knees, 
surrounded by memorials of better days, when 
carpets were not threadbare and the house less a 
crazy barn. 

" He thanked me with many a compliment. 
I, bold as brass, disclaimed everything but 
ordinary courtesy. Chocolate was served in 
delicate cups. That rich, sweet chocolate, am- 
brosia, and nectar in one. I taste it yet — a drink 
for the gods ! And as I set down my cup, in 
came the daughter, crossing the long room, her 
hat filled with flowers on her arm. Her father 
treated her as a child, saying when she came to 
kiss him, 4 This is Ninita, my little one,' evi- 
dently not thinking her old enough for introduc- 
tion. 

" To the eyes of twenty, seventeen is full ma- 
turity. She was older than Juliet when she 
gave the world its love-idyl, and these passion- 
ate Southern women unfold like their own sea- 
sons, not in slow, lingering buds, but quick 
bursting into perfect flower. She was the full- 
blown rose to Lieutenant John Graham. Win- 
some and gentle, darting glances of curiosity at 



The Antiquary s Story. 



241 



me, till taking a spray of white jasmine from 
her basket, she shyly offered me the fragrant 
gift, saying, 4 1 thank you for Papa's escape.' I 
have the dust of that jasmine yet. 

"I was enraptured, and murmured a few 
words in Spanish (I have since learned how poor 
they were), at which the merry maiden smiled." 

"Was she really beautiful? " 

" Undoubtedly. The rich olive complexion 
Murillo loved to paint, the brightest eyes under 
long curving lashes, rarely seen except in little 
children, and a dimple in her chin" — he hesi- 
tated — "I would have given kingdoms to plant 
one kiss there. 

"Spanish manner is a glossy veneer which 
stands the wear of three-score years in any cli- 
mate. Senor Velasco came down from his high 
stilts, and challenged me to a game of chess. 
Though a crack player, I allowed him to beat 
me, and while the game went on the young en- 
chantress leaned over her father's shoulder, now 
and then sipped the chocolate, and — stole my 
heart away. You do not know Monterey ? " 

"No I have not been further South than New 
Orleans." 

" It is a bit of Spain dropt on the Western 
Continent. Enclosed on three sides with mount- 
ains; sheer cliffs broken by dark defiles and 
dreary canons. The changeable colors of the 
Sierras Madres, 'the mother mountains,' are un- 
speakably beautiful. They might not look sc 
high and grand since I have crossed the Alps, 
but they were the first I had lived among, an<J 
16 



242 



The Repose in Egypt, 



were robed with peculiar charm to one fresh from 
the tameness of the prairie. And the veiling 
clouds of these Madres are fine and fleecy as the 
mystic veils of gauze which slightly screen the 
chosen beauties of the Seraglios. In the heart 
of the city is a chain of cool, clear springs which 
unite at last in the river. The Plaza is worthy 
of Seville. Ee member I see it with the eyes of 
youth, and so seeing will take off my glasses." 

He removed the green goggles, rubbed them 
with the scrap of chamois, and returned them to 
his vest pocket. Then he brought his slender 
finger-tips together, and continued, rather prosily, 
if the truth must be told. 

" There is a marble fountain in the center, 
whose dolphins would not shame a master. The 
paths, outlined with wicker work of cane and 
shaded by banana and orange-trees, were bor- 
dered with violets. Very pleasant to stroll 
along those white cemented walks when the 
band played at evening, and all Monterey walked 
among the blushing alleys of bloom. Yes, 
Monterey was an interesting place, and not with- 
out historic association, for there was kept the 
silken flag of Cortez, the incarnadine banner, a 
red trophy faded now to a coffee-color. And 
there, anciently, Aztec monarchs in pensive 
strain, sung the vanities of life in the depths of 
their harems, like the Judean King at Bethle- 
hem. And in that Western Orient came maid- 
ens to the springs with water-jars of dull red 
pottery on their shoulders, as they, do in Syria, 
tn the Plaza sometimes walked among the 



The Antiquary s Story. 243 

flowers, (herself a fairer flower) my Ninita, at- 
tended by her father, oftenest by the fat aunt. 

"In a crazy tower, reached by an outer 
stair wav whose stones have been worn into hoi- 
lows by tramping feet, was the wonderful chime 
of bells, where the ringers rang with a will and 
set wild echoes flying. They jarred the win- 
dows of Memory; sounded through every hall; 
and must have reverberated even to the vaults 
below where they say the Inquisition was once 
held. I used to sit by the plashing fountain, in 
airs heavy with orange and citron, and watch 
my daughter of Castile. A vision of loveliness 
in that tropic wilderness of sweets. Many ex- 
pectant watched for their lovers, but she was 
chiefest among ten thousand. 

"Once I saw her marching in a religious pro- 
cession, after attending a Mass of jubilant music, 
viol and cornet answering like signals from 
heaven. It was in May, the Yirgin's Month; 
the Image of the Blessed Mother was born aloft 
in front of girls in white, wearing wreaths of 
orange-flowers and flowing veils ; in their hands 
thej' carried white lilies. Following them, were 
scarlet-robed boys singing, and priests with 
tinkling bells and swinging censers; a motley 
crowd in the rear. They knelt before the altars 
of various saints; the sacred litter with its Holy 
Image rested on the lace-covered shrines; and all 
knelt while hymns were chanted and flowers 
strewn. A pretty custom. Dared I think of a 
lay when she should indeed be a bride, not of the 



244 



The Repose in Egypt. 



Church, but I beside her, proud and happy, call- 
ing her my own? 

" Away over the topmost peak of the Sierra 
de la Silla streamed our flag, the banner of glory 
and beauty, emblem of conquest over an empire 
till then the largest in the world after Eussia 
and China. My country's pride, stars unsullied 
as those in the sky, to die for it was no sacrifice. 
In patriotic fervor I blest and saluted it. Among 
the leaves and the waters the strange clanging 
bells rung on, and I vowed a vow that the Eose 
of Castile should not droop and perish among 
the pale nuns of the ghostly convent, but should 
live by my side, with, nothing to do but to love 
and be loved by me. 

" My summer ripened ; the visits at El Palacio 
grew more and more frequent ; for Senor Velasco 
was badly bored, and chess was a grand resource. 
The little maid who unconsciously had bound 
me captive, came in regularly with the choco- 
late, leaned on her father, watching the game; 
and my heart like a prisoner pacing drearily his 
cell would start at her glance and knock on its 
walls till I fancied she must hear it. 

u I had ventured on a few words, and she met 
me half way, naturally, like a fearless child ; as 
artless as modest. I knew better than to go 
beyond the merest commonplace. As to bribing 
the duenna, stealing a meeting or smuggling a 
note, none of these were to be thought of. I 
knew the first hint of admiration would send 
her to her chamber under bolt and bar, lost to 
me forever. In those days I had not scrupled 



— ■ • 



The Antiquary s Story. 24 § 

to do such, deeds, would have gloried in them 
had I been sure of success. 

" One hot summer day, when the senor had 
beaten me, and was in high good humor, we 
walked in the perfumed shade of the veranda, 
and listened to a song Ninita sung with guitar 
accompaniment called the 'Flower of Spain.' 
The very cry of the Moor was in the strain, the 
burning passion of Othello, and the plaint of the 
nightingale breathed in the melody. It swept 
through my soul like flame, and I burst into un- 
controllable words, not to be remembered, nor to 
be uttered now if they were. Words which 
must have moved the old Hidalgo, for I could 
see his lips quiver under the white mustache. 

" 4 Has my child given you cause, by word or 
sign, to think your suit would be acceptable ? ' " 

"'Never. I have seen her only in your pres- 
ence ; but I love her as wholly as I could after 
years acquaintance. She is transparent as sun- 
light.' He held up his hand, that lean, wiry, 
Spanish hand, slightly waving it in token of 
dissent. 

" ' I know all you would say, young man, and 
I like you.' He stopped at the extreme end of 
the porch, 'Wait a moment/ he said, hesitating. 
The all golden evening was deepening to crimson ; 
the amber mountain rim changing to royal colors 
well named the king's ; up the zenith evening's 
gray was spreading. 

" ' I am almost without kin,' he said, laying his 
hand on my shoulder ; 1 as you see, aging fast, 
an exile impoverished by the vices of my an- 



246 The Repose in Egypt, 

cestors. My daughter, who is dear to me as the 
blood-drops in my heart, has been nurtured in 
luxurious habits, and knows little of money — 
nothing of the want of it. You have no inherit- 
ance, you say.' 

<t4 No,' I broke out again; 1 but I have what 
can make fortune — strength, energy, education, 
incentive, opportunity. Give me a hope I may 
address your daughter ; point a career worthy of 
me, and I will run the race you set before me or 
die; 

" 1 It cannot be,' he answered, quietly and de- 
terminedly ; 1 if for no other reason than because 
your religion divides you.' 

<u But I will enter the Eoman Church,' I ex- 
claimed wildly. 1 What difference do a few forms 
m ake in one's creeds ? ' 

" Yelasco must have thought me insane to re- 
nounce the faith of my fathers for the bare 
chance of winning a woman, in his sight a school- 
girl. 

" 1 1 have other plans when she is old enough .' 

" 4 May I inquire them ? ' I asked, with an 
injured feeling ; for no father could love or had 
loved as I did. His hand slipped down my arm 
and rested in my hand. How cool it was against 
my fevered palm. The action meant T must hurt 
you, but not in hate. 1 Youth is headstrong and 
violent. There is not a throb of your pulse 
which I have not felt for her mother. It will 
quiet as mine has. The heydey in your blood 
will tame and wait upon your judgment, as mine 
does.' 



The Antiquary s Story. 247 

" 1 Never, never ! while it beats at all — ' He 
did not heed the interruption. 

"'I hope to return to Valadolid, next year. 
Ninita will be thrown with a cousin her equal in 
rank, heir to an unencumbered estate, something 
rare in the Cas tiles. She will have a choice — I 
will not force her heart — marriage with him or 
the Church. The Convent is a safe retreat for a 
fatherless girl, which she must be before a great 
while.' 

" She to be walled up in a convent, in gloomy 
corridors and mouldy, dingy cells ! The idea was 
a bitter blow. From the unseen singer — the 
subject of our conversation — words like these 
came, the very voice of the balmy evening. 

" 4 The night's heart and mine flow together, 
The music is beating for each. 
The moon's gone, the nightingale silent, 
Light and song are both in his speech* 

" * A spirit I cannot quiet 

Bids me bow to the unseen rod, 
1 dream of a lily transplanted 
To bloom in the garden of God.' 

" Then the wild, clanging bells resounded ; ris- 
ing, sinking, trembling, by distance mellow as 
organ-music in golden tubes. A heart-breaking 
music that said a thousand things, and seemed to 
say them all for me. The supreme moment of 
my life was passing. 4 She will be true to the 
Church,' I murmured. * That will be her choice.' 

" 4 Why do you think so ? ' 

I cannot give a reason. Since my suit is 
hopeless, let me take my leave. Before quitting 
this scene forever, may I see her once more as 



248 



The Repose in Egypt. 



she sits in the drawing-room ? I will not touch 
her hand, even, though I would, if you let me, 
kiss her shadow.' 

Ul It is not best/ he replied with hauteur, yet 
kindly. And I admitted it was not best. He 
resumed with a low voice full of feeling. 4 Your 
frank engaging manner has won me quite. 
Again, I say, how deeply I regret we ever met 
or ever parted ; 1 he listened again to the sweet 
singer. 1 Her fate was fixed before you came. 
If either had money how glad I should be to 
challenge my young friend to a life-long game of 
chess. 7 

" Ninita never had the disagreeable habit of 
striking with the nails, and the soft-troubled 
strings of her guitar hummed in perfect time 
while she warbled : 

4 ' As the musky shadows that mingle, 

As star-shine and flower scent made one, 
Our spirits in gladness and anguish 
Have met. Their waiting is done.' 

" I pressed the Sen or Velasco's hand ; heard 
his blessing, as I hurried through the garden, 
and the voice of a spirit unknown to sin and 
grief followed me." 

"You never saw her afterward," said the 
sympathetic Thalia, her eyes misty with tears. 

" Yes, once, it was in autumn, in one of the 
days of October when the earth seems to sleep. 
Such days come only to North America and 
Egypt. She was lost." 

"Not dead!" 

" !N~o, but as well be. She was in a nun's bon- 



The Antiquary s Story. 



net, calm as a marble statue, marching in line 
with clasped, adoring hands. It was All Souls 7 
Day when the nation prays in the churches, each 
for his own dead. In the center of every dark 
sanctuary the black funeral dais stands sur- 
rounded by flickering candles and grim sugges- 
tions. The altars are shrouded in crape and 
armorial banners bearing in Spanish the legend, 
'Kemember the Dead.' On that gloomy fete I 
saw her moving toward the cemetery, where the 
black-robed crowd brought into sharp whiteness 
the monuments and funeral urns. It would have 
been less melancholy had I followed her body in 
procession to the tolling of the bells for burial. 

" I fancied she noticed me among the idlers 
of the Plaza; one instant the clasped hands 
parted, and she made a gesture of recognition. 
The trees shivered to the Miserere and the fount- 
ains kept time to the mournful music of the 
chimes. She was the bride of the Church— no 
wedding-seal upon her lips. 

" In this affair I had no confidant. I had a 
boundless worship and unquestioning belief in 
the girl of whom I knew so little. The mould 
of each human face is different, and though I 
look through varied faces and on all continents I 
have met no eyes like hers." 

" What was the unique charm ? " 

" What is the charm of the opal, of the helio- 
trope's scent, or the secret touch of the nightin- 
gale's note? I cannot describe it any more than 
I can call back my lost youth and love again. It 
does not come at my bidding. 



250 



The Repose in Egyfti. 



" Soon afterward, our army disbanded. Before 
leaving Monterey I made a farewell visit to the 
fountain of my Egeria, where happy phantoms 
danced with the flashing brook. I knelt among 
the ferns with hairlike stems and tiny flowers, 
and the ripples broke on my cheek like a dewy 
kiss, as I drank my fill. A few tears dropped 
into the braided stream, and so passed my first 
deep experience. 

"I turned the leaf on that chapter and opened 
afresh. I studied law; for I was ambitious and 
it was, and is the path to distinction in the West- 
ern States. The law alone should be my mis- 
tress. I never learned 'to drink the foam of the 
moment/ and catch the passing pleasure. I was 
too earnest and constant. Ever with me was the 
unsatisfied want, the longing for the unforgotten. 
It was no boyish illusion, to be dropped with 
outgrown garments." 

"You wrote a successful book," I said, sugges- 
tively, " a child of the brain to love." 

"My work on the 1 Pre-Historic Man.' It cost 
me a world of absorbing work, went the rounds 
of the publishers.'' 

"But was finally accepted." 

"Yes, on condition that I paid expenses my- 
self. The sale never reached two thousand 
copies. Iron mines in Pennsylvania lifted me 
from the compelling labor of poverty ; and as to 
straining after the bubble called fame, who was 
there to rejoice in my success or lament my fail- 
ure? I was like Lord Jeffries. Suppose I have 



The Antiquary s Story. 251 

rank, admirers, ten thousand a year, who is there 
to run home to and tell it ? 

"Quietly I entered the silent castle of Old 
Bachelorism. Its turrets and towers became 
possessed of strange enchantment • its dim halls 
are restful and care-free. But I have had one 
glimpse through an open door of a prophetic life 
far different ; of a wife and dark-eyed children 
calling me father. The door then shut will never 
open again; it closed without one echo. Faint 
and mistlike grow the dying hues of a pictured 
fireside, and the craving after the ideal life is not 
strong now. I have left the whirlpool and the 
shoals, and rarely stir the bitter waters of mem- 
ory. Happily for the human family, we can live 
only one day at a time. One day at a time I 
seek employment and enjoyment, and I fear no 
to-morrow though it may be the last." 

A'gain he paused. 

" Those nuns are short lived. The bare monot- 
ony of their days vibrating between Church and 
Convent is wearing to the very soul. Had she 
lived she would now be fifty-five years old. 
When she let life's flower fall she passed to the 
kingdom of perpetual youth. In the little cem- 
etery of the convent-garden my first, last, only 
love has slept well for many and many a year. 

" I think it is Chataubriand who says, 4 When 
you have nothing else left in life, go to Eome.' 
I went, and became the student of Eoman his- 
tory. The Golden milestone has not been set up 
elsewhere, and Eome is still the center of the 
world. I grew into a liking for the Imperial 



252 The Repose in Egypt. 



city, and lingered over the traces of her foot- 
prints, from the Insula inhospitalibus, which the 
Centurion shivered when he named, to the meas- 
ureless wastes well-named the Ends of the Earth. 
A girlish shape and flower-like face would 
illumine my folios sometimes. I cannot realize 
that the grayhaired matron is what might have 
been, for where death sets his seal the imprint 
is eternal and endureth forever. My Ninita is 
with the saints of her childhood. 

"Not often do I summon the ghost of myself 
before the curtain. Here in the pause of the 
whirl, among the dead millions, where the dust 
under our feet was once alive, the temptation to 
ponder the near kinship of the human family 
presses on me. Every mummy in yon catacomb 
has glowed with worship intense as mine, and 
trembled under the chill of disappointment. 
1 The thing which hath been is that which shall 
be and there is nothing new under the sun.' 

" This may be called my final flash of senti- 
ment. 77 He spoke with conviction. " And now 
the last spark is dying. I have little time left, 
and so— Put out the light, put out the light! 77 

XXII. 

CONCLUSION. 

Our Riposa came to a sudden stop. In the 
fourth week the strangest thing happened: a 
shower fell. Tiny drops came pattering on the 
tent, and instead of closing curtains against them 
we ran out to receive the pleasant visitation, 



Conclusion. 



253 



and stretched our hands in welcome. The Suez 
Canal has brought moisture, and this was hailed 
with delight by the dried-up Islanders. We 
were so rested, and so bored, that secretly we 
were counting the days till the thirty were past. 
Six more, then back to the turmoil we call civil- 
ization. Such was the situation when unexpect- 
edly, at least to three of our party, the Riposa 
ended. It was the afternoon we stood enjoying 
the shower. 

"Any one passing might think we haven't 
sense enough to come in when it rains," I ob- 
served. 

" Truly, but luckily no one is passing ; we are 
secure." 

Antiquary bent his ear to the Earth, Indian 
fashion, using the aboriginal telephone. " Par- 
don," he said, " but someone is passing. I hear 
the dip of oars. The servants are in their lodge, 
we are in danger of invasion by a visitor." 

The ladies fled to their hand-mirrors to smooth 
their limp and clammy dresses, and pick up 
their hair a little — crimps having been aban- 
doned with other troublesome disguises. 

The sound of paddles was soon clear, we 
heard the keel grate on the sand. Silence all, lo ! 
the apparition of a man. A newcomer into 
Egypt. From lands lying nearer the North Star 
he brought that rapid, energetic step, that pros- 
perous and buoyant spirit which carried him 
along as though he had come to conquer the Isle 
of the Lily. 

Chicago all over, from the natty hat to the 



254 



The Repose in Egypt. 



neatly brushed shoe. No nonsense of dragging 
scarf or flapping tourist handkerchief about 
him. All was snug and neat, spick-and-span- 
new. Business, business, was in every line of 
his face, every button of his ulster. 

We knew him afar, not dawdling along the 
dim path, and the confident manner and cheery 
voice were like a whiff of Lake breeze. The 
blood-spots in the cheek of Thalia told the tale 
even if she had not changed eyes with the 
stranger. Here was the happy triumphant 
lover. Oar slight acquaintance, begun in Lon- 
don, had been saved from dying by brief letters 
at long intervals. 

He rested his grip-sack on the ground, and 
shook hands heartily. The rain passed ; the 
ladies — one blushing violently — emerged from 
their bower. Another hand-shaking, "One 
more camp-stool, Achmet ! " and Allen Cameron 
was as much at home with us as though we had 
journeyed without a break since we parted at 
Havre two years before. 

He glanced at river, earth, and sky. " How 
long have you borne this sort of thing?" he 
inquired, speaking very fast. 

" Twenty-two days." 

" Incredible, my friend." 

4< It is only the incredible which happens. 
We are in a Riposa^ 

" A rest which none but the dead have leisure 
to appreciate. I had a time tracing you. I 
thought to hit you at Alexandria. As well ask 
the stone Pharaohs as the people along the 



Conclusion. 



255 



river, though. I had a professional courier and 
boatmen who knew English. Two words are 
all, mind you, and they are that deceitful Ameri- 
canism, 1 All right.'" 

He laughed, and we laughed with the gay 
traveler. The Chicagoan was a refreshment, 
and his air of reserve-force under the light and 
bloomy manner was irresistible. We lolled no 
longer on the warm cushions; we braced up and 
sat each in his own place fairly roused to inter- 
est in the world we call our own. 

" I give you important news from the interior 
metropolis. Harrison was beaten. Eoache 
nominated for Mayor on the first ballot. A cal- 
amity, a public calamity, but we will recover as 
we did from the strikes and the great fire. How 
long did you say you have existed in this old 
tomb of a place? " 

We repeated the date. 

" Heroic martyrs, tenacious of life. Do you 
study the fine arts of Egypt ? Drawings with 
busts in front, heads in profile, eyes full on the 
gide-face, and call it divine ? " 

"Indeed we find the strange shapes fascinat- 
ing." 

"They told me at Cairo another Eameses has 
been unwound from his bandages; they know 
him by his cartouche — the Pharaoh of the Exo- 
dus. Always that particular hero done up in 
spices and a gilded coffin, with endless histories 
on the lid, rings on his fingers and toes ready 
for Banbury Cross. I thought he had been lying 
thousands of years at the bottom of the Bed Sea. 



256 The Repose in Egypt. 

There are to be high, ceremonies at the opening, 
Khedive and dignitaries will grace the Boulak 
Museum with their august presences the day he 
is unwound from his bandages. This is the third 
of the Exodus Pharaohs. Maybe they were 
three twin brothers." 

" Maybe they were, but the scientists are not 
always mistaken." 

M Well, well, a living dog is better than a dead 
lion. They say there's a picture of Cleopatra 
not far from here on a wall of clouded alabaster." 

" We haven't found it — in fact haven't hunted 
for it," 

His restless hazel eyes had taken in all the 
landscape at first glance, like the prodigies on 
exhibition by the lecturers about memory. 

" Come, Thalia," his voice sunk to a softer tone, 
" let us make the circuit of this Island. If it's 
to be found, I'd like to see the picture before I 
go." 

" Not now, Allen," she answered, "it is too 
hot. We will try it later." 

" But we leave in three hours." 
" In three hours ! " 
" In three hours I " 

" In three hours. Positively. I am here to 
rescue you from impending death by boredom. 
I must be in Alexandria in three days ; time and 
tide, you know." 

" We will have sun-stroke to go out now the 
sun is so high : rest here till sundown, Allen." 

" Yes, that is my plan. Is there no shady 



Conclusion. 



257 



walk for us?" he asked, impatiently. "I'm so 
cramped with, sitting in that canoe." 

" There is nothing but these palms." 

"And these," added Thalia, gently smiling, and 
extending her upturned hands, delicate as a 
baby's. 

Under our friendly eyes she did not withdraw 
them when the stranger prest the finger-tips to 
his lips. Nor did she seek to hide her delight. 
They were at one, and Allen Cameron had made 
Egypt dull and faded by his bright presence. 

" We must go together, or stay together, Mr. 
Cameron," I remarked with dignity. 

" Of course, that is my plan." He took out 
his little account book. " We drop down to- 
night as far as, — let me see — let me see." 

We did not wait for the name, but rushed at 
our trunks and boxes with unwonted activity. 
Our slignt wardrobe was soon gathered together, 
and before sundown we were ready. 

Even Achmet and Hassan roused as with 
some subtle philter in the tonic atmosphere of 
the newcomer. They struck up a wild barbaric 
air, and, keeping time, pulled at the tent-ropes 
and brought down the "houses of hair" in a 
twinkling. The cloths were folded, the poles 
lashed, the boxes packed, and the brown lizards 
crawled away from under the stones which the 
cook had made his pillow. 

Beyond the river children were playing as if 
it were midsummer. The sad Sahia was creak- 
ing in the dreary work of the fields. It is the 
laziest of machines driven by the laziest of 
17 



258 The Repose in Egypt. 



laborers, but it is work. Wise for us not to 
dash at one bound into the hurry of the West, 
but to approach by slow degrees, the Safa'a 
being the mild beginning. We pushed into the 
soundless current which hardly stirred the dumb 
spell of the Desert. 

" There is always an underflow of silence," 1 
observed, with sentiment. 

" Yes, except when it fills up to an overflow,'' 
retorted the unsparing Cameron. 

No use trying to impress him with the tropic 
feeling. 

11 To have seen Egypt is a precious possession.' 
I added, determined not to let the heretic go 
unhurt. 

u It is indeed. I shall greatly enjoy the mem- 
ory in State Street No. 1480, Chicago." 

The red gold of sunset melted ; crimson ok 
orange poured over the landscape and gilded the 
plumes of the palms, stately and still, never to 
be seen again by us. 

The frail bark drifted away like a phantom 
skiff, a sudden feeling of sadness came over us. 
We had been so quiet and in a trance-like state 
restful as sleep; now to leave it forever and take 
up our weariness again. The two granite 
Pharaohs sat on the banks with hands on their 
knees, their feet close together, staring straight 
on at nothing. Thus they have sat thousands of 
years, and thus the stony eyes will be fixed 
thousands of years to come. The Eesurrection 
will find them unchanged, and that Day seems 
no further away than the long yesterdays rep- 



Conclusion. 



resented by the changeless kings. Good bye to 
the pillared hall where wonderful histories are 
illumined with vermeil and blue. We shall 
never see its like again. Good-bye. 

The fine gold of sunset became dross; the pal- 
ing twilight was dull gray; darkness curtained 
the land after the fiery glow which falls only 
from a dome of rainless blue. 

I sought the band of Thalia. It was already 
at home in the clasp of Allen Cameron. Darker 
grew the sky, deeper the river. Eeedy margins 
echoed the screams of startled night hawks and 
a jackal robbed of his prey. A gray wolf was 
a slinking shadow seeking cover in the tangled 
jungle. Faint the outline of our Isle ; a speck, 
a wavy mote, it sank into the dimness and a? 
~k%8 as a dream when one awoke th. 



THE END. 



I 



i 

( 



THE BOSPHORUS. 



ALONG THE BOSPHORTJS. 



TWO VOYAGES UP THE BOSPHORUS. 
L 

THE FIRST VOYAGE: 1390 B.C. 

It was many and many a hundred years ago; 
how many, who knows? who cares? It was in 
the morning of time, when the earth was young, 
that Europe and Asia were one land, and the 
Black Sea and the Hellespont were great lakes, 
probably united by a river. In some awful con- 
vulsion of Nature — one of those tremendous 
throes which destroy continents and create new 
ones — the rocks were rent, hills torn asunder, a 
chasm opened and the floods of the two lakes 
rushed together, we can fancy, with a roar which 
reached to the very stars in their courses and the 
secret place of the thunder. The rupture left a 
sort of land -mark in the Cyanean Rocks at the 
entrance of the Black Sea, against which waves 
break madly, filling the air with violent noise 
and darkening foam — the clashing or floating 
rocks of the poets, destined by the gods to 
protect the Euxine from the prying eyes of 
profane curiosity. 

In the heroic ages volcanic action had not 

263 



264 



Along the Bosphorus, 



ceased ; and it is likely such upheavals gave rise 
to the myths about Jupiter and the giants tear- 
ing up mountains and piling them to scale 
Olympus. Geology, poetry, tradition unite in 
testimony of the changes wrought by the com- 
motions. The indentations of one shore, thus 
thrown up, correspond with projections of the 
other ; on one side a bay, on the opposite a jut- 
ting point of land with strata identical. 

Conflicting currents rush this way and that. 
A rapid, incessant one from the Black Sea to the 
Marmora darts from point to point on the shores, 
like a ball from the sides of a billiard table. 
The bottom is a succession of descents, over 
which the water tumbles with the force of a 
cataract. There is an under-current like that of 
Gibraltar and other narrow straits, which flows 
contrary to the upper one. Objects thrown into 
the Bosphorus at the extreme western end are 
frequently carried to the other, while at the same 
moment things floating on the surface are mov- 
ing in precisely the opposite direction. Its 
length is about twenty-five miles, its greatest 
depth sixty fathoms, though poets are in the 
habit of styling it the fathomless Bosphorus. 
The cold, transparent stream ever flowing, ever 
tranquil, makes a silvery link, uniting two seas 
and two continents. Every line of its shining 
margin is drawn in graceful, sweeping curves by 
the Great Master's hand ; every hill is a soft 
picture ; and its banks are flowered with lovely 
legends which enchanted all Greece before the 
"Odyssey" was written. 



The First Voyage: ijgo B.C. 265 

The name was given on account of the passage, 
in the mythic period, of a bull — the word 
" Bosphorus " meaning " the Passage of the 
Bull." One day, Europa, daughter of King 
Agenor, was at play with her maidens in a 
meadow, such as Pan loved to pipe in, while 
nymphs and satyrs danced. It was near Scutari, 
where the heroes of the Crimea lie, the unnamed 
dead from the bloody field of Inkerman ; there, 
where thirty centuries after King Agenor's time, 
Florence Nightingale taught us how divine a 
spirit may wear mortal shape, and minister to 
men. The story runs that the surpassing loveli- 
ness of the princess won the admiration of 
Jupiter, and he assumed the shape of a bull and 
mingled with the herds of Agenor. Struck by 
the gentleness of the snow-white animal, Europa 
and her maidens caressed it, stroked its flowing 
mane, hung rosy garlands on its horns, and 
finally, in fearless frolic, she mounted its back. 
The god then ran away with his prize, and, in no 
wise encumbered with his light burden, swam to 
the Thracian side of the Bosphorus, which has 
ever since been called Europe, in memory of 
that day. 

The first ship which dared the perilous navi- 
gation of the Marmora and the swift-rushing 
currents of the channel, was the good ship Argo. 
The story takes us back to dim centuries with- 
out a date, where the flickering torch men call 
history gives fitful, transient light, not enough to 
chase phantoms and shades which haunt the 
cloudy spaces where dream and fable are eternally 



266 Along the Bosphorus, 



at playful war with sober truth : back to the 
days of the demigods, the beginnings of the glori- 
ous myths of classic Greece. An age, compared 
with which our own time seems the dull gray 
afternoon of a gold and purple dawn. It was 
before our British ancestors, dressed in skins of 
wild beasts and hiding in caves, had learned to 
tremble at the iron tramp of the Eoman legion- 
aries. It was before Carthage existed even in 
name, before Homer, grand and wise, taught 
men how long one singer's songs may last. 

There are mole-eyed students who see only 
grotesque fantasies in the noble poems of the 
ancient minstrels. Others, made wiser by faith, 
find boundless depths of living glory in the re- 
ligion whose hymns have become meaningless 
through lack of worshipers, and have been for- 
gotten. Their last school closed with the tragedy 
of Hypatia. 

It is the class of pleasant scholars who some- 
times dream — and every one knows how dreams 
illumine the understanding — which we invite to 
a sail in the wake of the Argo, The magical 
vessel could hear and feel, and obeyed its crew 
as a steed that loves its rider; its lights yet 
glitter in the blue above, brighter than they 
shone of old in the broad blue seas which the 
heroes named as they sailed. The Aryo was 
built in the twilight that surrounds the border 
land of old romance, 

il Magnified by the purple mist 
The dusk of centuries and of song." 

There is confusion of date in that remote 



The First Voyage: 1390 B.C. 267 

epoch. Some historians say it was about the 
time Gideon delivered Israel from the Midian- 
ites, not far from the day when the archers were 
many on Mount Gilboa, when the shield of the 
mighty was cast vilely away and the beauty of 
Israel was slain in her high places. Who knows? 
Who cares? Where the years run into thou- 
sands a few centuries more or less are of small 
account. 

It was the first long ship that ever entered 
the Bosphorus, was built at the foot of Mount 
Pelion, and was named for the builder. Athena 
directed the work, and a speaking branch from 
the forest of Dodona, the oracle grove, was at 
the stern. It was but a small vessel compared 
with the great structures of iron war-ships, 
with heavy guns, and the mighty armaments 
which since have swept these waters. Frisian, 
Thracian, Byzantine, Persian, Samian, Macedo- 
nian, Athenian, Gaul, Vandal, Goth, Scythian, 
Koman, Armenian, Hun, Avar, Euss, Frank, 
Varangian, Saracen, Venetian, Genoese, English, 
French, German, have spread their sails as 
friend or foe to favoring winds. They are for- 
gotten as the waves of yesterday; not one name 
among them is remembered ; but the name of 
the Argo lives forever. 

It is said that the merchantmen of the Euxine 
are modeled after her. They are enormous, un- 
wieldy things, rising to considerable height out 
of the water, both at the bow and stern, and seem 
incapable of resisting a gale of moderate force. 
They have seldom more than one mast with an 



268 Along the Bosphorus. 



immense mainsail, and move with so infirm a 
balance that they totter along as if about to up- 
set every moment, and are often dashed on the 
Cyanean Books, which guard, like pitiless senti- 
nels, the entrance of the Black Sea, or are driven 
to wreck on the sands. If it be true the Argo 
was of this shape she was a most ungainly ves- 
sel. I refuse to believe those descendants of the 
gods, with Minerva at their head, ever directed 
such a graceless work. She was pitched coal 
black, and painted vermilion at each end. 

Fifty oars she carried from the dark pine for- 
ests of Pelion ; each oarsman was a Greek prince 
or a mighty man of valor ; for, in those golden 
days, the king's sons were the best and bravest, 
and the king himself was not ashamed to lead 
armies and be their champion. They were hun- 
ters who had killed their own game among the 
mountains and had cooked it themselves ; and 
after the feast they lay down to sleep pillowed 
on their bucklers, cold and hard. Meads of 
asphodel, beds of poppies or flinty rock were the 
same to them. They slept like children on the 
lap of their mother, and rose in the morning 
fresh as youth, wise as age; fathers of the war- 
riors who fought at Troy and made that bare, 
empty plain illustrious while this globe remains ; 
heroes with hair that waved high in air, the race 
of the Earth-shakers, whose strength came from 
the everlasting hills of the land of perfect beauty. 
Jason was commander ; and while the centuries 
have piled oblivious years like funeral stones 
above the grave of myriad captains, fame holds 



The First Voyage: ijgo B.C. 269 

that one in eternal keeping. Like the Norse 
king, Olaf, he could run along the bending oars 
outside the ship, so light of foot was he ; light 
of heart, too, for he had the promise of the crown 
of Iolcos and a kingdom, if he would capture 
and bring back from Colchis the Golden Fleece 
which the king of that country had stolen from 
one of Jason's relatives and nailed to a beech-tree 
in the war- god's wood — the all Golden Fleece of 
the wondrous ram with wings which bore 
Phreyxus and Helle across the Euxine. 

Colchis lay at the foot of icy Caucasus, a far 
country, where dwelt fair women who belonged 
to the race of the sun ; and to this day the most 
beautiful men and women in the world are to be 
found in Circassia, the ancient Colchis, as all 
know who have visited the harems of the East 
or who have seen the wild-eyed soldiers who 
form the body-guard of the Sultan. They were 
so called, perhaps, from their hair of reddish 
gold, which is such a delight to the dark races 
of the Orient. 

The fame of Medea, the king's daughter, had 
spread to the Mediterranean countries ; for she 
was a beauty and a witch, and could throw the 
thrall of her enchantments over any man who 
came within the spell of her magic glance. 
Great was her power. She could unravel the 
black threads spun in the fates of kings. She 
knew what plants, gathered under the full moon, 
had been breathed on by the god of breathless 
sleep, and she had incantations and talismans for 
the security of those sIiq loved. In her caul- 



27» 



Along the Bosphorus. 



Avon an old black ram, consumed by fire, be- 
came a lamb, and aged, worn-out men came forth 
from their own ashes restored to the strength of 
manhood's prime. She could become invisible 
in a fiery chariot drawn by winged dragons 
through the fields of air, and she had a fiery tem- 
per, as the reader of Euripides knows, which led 
her to destroy her own children and poison with 
insidious draught a guest invited to her banquet. 
Her love was a consuming passion, her jealousy 
a barbarous fury, which demanded the death of 
any rival. ■ 

When it was known that Jason was to dare the 
adventure of the Golden Fleece, the bloom and 
flower of Grecian chivalry flocked to his stand- 
ard. Those youthful princes had no fear of the 
unknown; they loved danger for her own sake 
and courted her as a bride. Hardships were but 
incentives, fairy hands beckoning them on to 
daring deed and high enterprise. Chiron was 
their teacher, wisest of all men under the sun; 
and to souls so brave by birth, so wise by coun- 
sel, furies and harpies, dragons and flying ser- 
pents with azure eyes, gold-guarding griffins and 
death-dealing gorgons, were monsters they loved 
to meet. Well might they be bold and venture- 
some. On board the Argp was Esculapius, the 
first physician, father of those who study med- 
icine and surgery; and there were the royal twin 
brethren, sons of Led a, who alternately lived 
and died, and in tempests flames played round 
their head, and then storms ceased and the ocean 
calmed. There was Orpheus, taught by Apollo, 



The First Voyage: 13 go B.C. 271 

to whose harp the pine-wood oars kept time. 
He had learned by ear and could charm all 
spirits of earth and air, Heaven or Hell. When 
he played his harp of gold the rivers rolled 
backward, wild beasts tamely crawled to his feet, 
the mountains stirred and the dead came up from 
beneath the sea. 

By the old marbles we know those Greeks 
were of supreme beauty. The all-beholding sun 
sees not their like to-day. Space fails for the 
names whose fame fills the world. They had 
not adopted the motto of the later Stoics: 
" Patriotism is the first delusion of the simpleton 
and the last refuge of the knave." They loved 
glory, but they loved Greece more ; they laid 
their trophies at her feet and never swerved 
from loyalty to the land of their birth, the violet 
vales and rosy hills where their youth had spent 
itself in manly games and prince-like learning. 
They had cheering responses from the oracle 
who knew the number of the sands and the 
measure of the seas, who understood the dumb, 
could see the invisible and hear him who does 
not speak. Neptune, with tumbling hair and 
foamlike beard, sat at the door of the Strait of 
Helle and refused to give up the key to any new- 
comer sailing that way; but among the crew 
were men wise in the secrets of the universe, 
who could afford to laugh at the sea-god's hoary 
head and weak pretense, the senility of age. 
They held the clew to the inner shrines of the 
winds, and knew what strains from the magic 



272 Along the Besphorus* 

harp would lull tlie liigli flying sons of Boreas 
to rest. 

They were a band of imaginative men steering 
for the morning twilight, which they believed to 
be a reflection from the Elysian Fields. To the 
brilliant fantasies of those early Greeks are due 
many of the most exquisite conceptions of the 
human mind. They thought the earth was flat, 
circularly extended under the blue and starry 
floor of the Olympian gods, where the highest 
deity shoots the lightning and rests his many- 
colored bow, invisible to mortal eye. yet making 
men tremble by the thunder of his voice. The 
Mediterranean was the center of the earth, and 
was rilled with floating rocks and rocking islands. 
In their personified religion no space of earth, 
sea, or sky was unpeopled. Away to the east 
were the groves and dancing ground of the sun: 
beyond them was frosty Caucasus overlooking 
Colchis. To reach it they must cross the Cim- 
merian region of perpetual night, where the air 
is full of feathers, and Boreas, the shivering 
tyrant, ruled ; and they would not stop till they 
came to the end of the world. "When night, 
which subdues gods and men, received the set- 
ting sun into her arms, they had to grapple with 
mystic shadows, imps with wraith-like veils, 
supernatural foes which shrink from sunbeams, 
and to confront mysteries which might make the 
boldest tremble. 

But those royal souls were undaunted. The 
geography of the wonderful voyage is embel- 
lished in a way to rouse the dullest fancy. The 



The First Voyage: 1390 B.C. 273 

cool chambers of the Mediterranean siieltered 
mermaids with golden combs and yellow tresses. 
In crystal depths, among the corals and sea-fan, 
the palms of the ocean, was heard the laughter 
of the daughters of the sea. On its waves naiads 
rocked and swam, and halcyon birds sat brood- 
ing on their nests, at home and at rest on the 
friendly waters. Gliding sirens sung in sunny 
bays, tossed their arms on the long wave-tops 
which curled in pride to the lovely burdens they 
upbore, and sparkled and gleamed with the limbs 
of the nymphs, whiter than the foam they scat- 
tered. They wooed the heroic sons of an alien 
race with softest smiles and dewy kisses. Past 
the witching music they safely steered ; past 
Scylla and Charybdis, past the floating Isle of 
Circe, the enchantress, sister of Medea. Two 
years they lived in Lemnos, south of the Cy- 
clades ; they visited Crete and saw where Jove 
was cradled among the high peaks of Ida — 
many-fountained Ida, mother of wild beasts. 
They made friends of the warriors of her hun- 
dred cities, leaders, destined to battle on the 
ringing plains of windy Troy. 

Cretan triremes, manned by corsairs, scoured 
the seas, plundering merchant vessels laden with 
Tyrian stuffs, jewels of the East, and wheat from 
Egypt. The Argo promised no such spoil, and 
in peace they entered the court of Minos, legis- 
lator and king, before whom the dead plead their 
cause, and the impartial judge shakes the fatal 
urn which is filled with the destinies of mankind, 
From the deck of the Argo they saw — for they 
18 



274 Along the Bosphort 



had the far sight of demigods — ancient Troy, 
overlooking the mouth of the Hellespont, 
where, a generation later, the Grecian camp 
stretched twelve miles along the shore, whiten- 
ing the coast from the Sigean to the Bhaetean 
promontory. There the flanks of the army 
were guarded by Achilles and Ajax, bravest 
chiefs who marched under the banners of Aga- 
memnon. But one of the Argonauts lived to 
behold the undying glory of that field, old Nes- 
tor, the clear-voiced orator of the Pylians. 

So they passed the Dardanelles, bound for the 
limit of the habitable world bevond whose black 
line were the gates of Tartarus. Those gallant 
buccaneers did little that was possible; they 
landed as suited their pleasure, slew men and 
monsters, and held on their course, even when 
the Night, her mantle spangled with stars, threw 
a bewildering shade under which the war of the 
winds went on. They were ready to do every- 
thing a king's son might, and dared even death, 
to whom it is useless for man to offer oblation, 
prayer or sacrifice. They passed happy valleys 
and dark grottoes, fought gigantic beasts with 
bat-like wings, all manner of horrible prodigies, 
and, after triumphs, erected votive tablets and 
holy altars. They stole women when they 
wanted them, slew giants, sorcerers and wizards, 
and never lost faith in their power to seize the 
Fleece of the Speaking Earn. 

The pioneer vessel of the Bosphorus made its 
first landing at Dolma Batch e, where the palace 
pf Sultan Aboul Hamid, the Beloved, lifts its 



The First Voyage: ijgo B.C. 2?$ 



front of marble, and to this day tlie place is called 
Jasonium. A mist hung over the hills, a deli- 
cate, evanescent haze, pale rose and silver, shot 
with gold. Lightly the morning sun rolled up 
the ethereal curtain, as the Eastern lover lifts 
the gauzy veil from the blushing face of his 
bride betrothed, long promised, now first laid 
bare. 

The watchers on the stately galley eagerly 
gazed on the virgin land, slowly coming to view 
as the trailing cloud, a transient garment hiding 
the eternal splender, vanished into air. Sky 
and sea were speckless sapphire. Nature looked 
back at her young lovers, shy and tender, bash- 
ful as a bride. I wait for you, she said, in color, 
perfume, and melody. The pines, with dim, 
aeolian soundings, answered the warm land 
breeze. Scented thickets, tangles of resplendent 
blooms, echoed and rang with songs of nightin- 
gales ; butterflies darted, like winged blossoms, 
through the air ; the cuckoo piped her pretty 
note ; the sailing sea-birds screamed ; the ripples 
murmured mellow, musical and low — harmoni- 
ous all as the faint, exquisite sights and sounds 
of a dream unbroken. It was the supreme mo- 
ment. Toil and hardship were forgotten, and, 
thrilled with rapturous delight, Jason exclaimed : 
" Surely this is the dwelling-place of the gods!" 
We cannot do more than hint at the perils of 
• the upper Bosphorus. Pirates pounced on the 
regal filibusters, and compelled them to seek ref- 
uge in Stenia, where the palace of the Persian 
Ambassador now throws its pink shadow in the 



276 Along the Bosfihorus. 



glassy bay. Amyous, King of the Bebryces, 
dared them to mortal combat, and was himself 
slain by Pollux, brother of beauteous Helen ; 
and again the Argonauts made for the sea of 
mysteries and fascinations, stopping at Kavake 
to consult King Phineus as to their course. 
This miserable man had rested under the an- 
ger of the gods, and was blinded, as a punish- 
ment for having rashly looked into the future. 
The avenging deities sent to torture him the 
Harpies, obscene monsters, with faces of old 
women, the wings and bodies of vultures, who 
kept him in constant alarm, and snatched and 
devoured the meats on his table. The daintiest 
food was spread before him, and his appetite was 
keen ; bat soon as he lifted a morsel to his lips, 
the Harpies seized and swallowed it. The two 
sons of Eolus, the wind-god, persuaded Phineas 
to instruct them in the way to Colchis, on con- 
dition that they would deliver him from his tor- 
mentors. This was done, and Jason also re- 
stored the prophet to sight by the juice of magic 
herbs. The King gratefully warned his bene- 
factor of the Symplegades at the entrance to the 
Euxine; two jagged, floating blue rocks, with 
only twenty furlongs between. They were self- 
shutting, and closed on objects rashly passing 
through and crushed them to atoms. 

Jason piously sacrificed to the twelve gods, 
before trying the entrance so like the fatal jaws # 
of death, and, returning to his ship, he sent out 
a dove to test the narrow opening, shot after it, 
and safely and hastily pulled into the open sea. 



The First Voyage: ijpo &.C. 1*77 

The masts creaked and reeled ; every plank and 
joint screamed and groaned with the dreadful 
strain, and the ship, in affright, cried aloud, like 
some despairing swimmer in his agony of fruit 
less prayer. The cliffs almost entrapped the 
stern of the vessel, destined by fate, from that 
portentous moment, never to close again. It is 
said that on one of the Cyanean Isles, which 
may be reached on foot in calm weather, is a 
marble column that once was white, its carvings 
defaced by long warfare of time and tide, its 
base defiled with ooze, moss and stain of weed 
and tangle — by tradition, an altar of Jason, con- 
secrated to the dark and secret powers of Nature 
which the Argonauts deified and blindly wor- 
shiped, with many a weird superstition and in- 
cantation. 

Says the modern Turk, " We call the Euxine 
the Black Sea, because it turns men's hearts 
black with fear. 77 Unceasing winds blew then 
as now, relentless as the breath of Destiny. 
Chill mists, like sheeted specters, floated over 
the cold surface; ghostly phantoms, white and 
gray, haunted the vast space which stretched 
away in gloom so vague and undefined it would 
seem one must sail threescore years to reach its 
harbor, if it have one, and dying, catch the far- 
off beating of the surf against the further shore. 

The At go was driven on an island ; but white- 
armed Juno loved the heroes, and helped them 
through this and many other perils, and finally 
landed the sailor princes at Colchis. Jason ex- 
plained the purpose of his unexpected visit, and 



2^8 



Along the Bosfihorus. 



the king agreed to give up the treasure on con- 
dition that the adventurer would tame two bulls 
with brazen feet and horns, tie them to a plough 
of adamant and plow two acres of ground never 
before broken. The savage creatures breathed 
flame and smoke, and had never been touched 
by the hand of man. After the plowing he was 
to sow the teeth of a dragon, from which an 
army would spring up to be destroyed by his 
hands, then he must kill a sleepless, azure-eyed 
snake, which coiled at the roots of the beech-tree 
on which the Golden Fleece was nailed; and all 
these labors were to be finished in one day, be- 
tween the rising and the setting of the sun. 
They could never have been accomplished had 
not Medea, the magician princess, fallen in love 
with the warrior, haughtily demanding the prize, 
not as a gift or a purchase, but as a right. She 
pledged with solemn oaths to deliver the Argo- 
nauts from her father's hard terms if Jason 
would marry her and take her to Greece — an 
easy thing for the Captain of the Argo to do ; for 
the lady of the sun's race was immortally beau- 
tiful, with hair like a glory, lustrous, tropical 
eyes, and she was wise beyond the privilege of 
woman. He swore eternal fidelity, and, by 
Medea's sorceries, tamed the fire-breathing oxen, 
lulled, with a charmed potion, the scaly serpent 
at the roots of a tree, snatched the Golden Fleece 
from the limb where it hung blazing in the star- 
light, and marched away, leaving the Colchians 
stunned with amazement at his audacity. 

That was a land of marvels and of mysteries. 



The First Voyage: ijgo B.C. 279 

Not the least among them was Prometheus, 
cursed for stealing the holy fire from Heaven, 
who was chained to a rock above the clouds on 
Caucasus, the avenging eagle forever hovering, 
ever devouring his heart. From the mystic ice 
flower which sprang up in the snow where the 
blood dripped from his wounds, Medea had dis- 
tilled the horrid medicine which disarmed the 
dragon serpent. 

Exultantly the Heroes sailed away, away, 
through hoar vapor, surge, and foam, where the 
storm spirits ride on the rainbow; and the proud 
ship felt the added presence of the artful witch - 
maiden an inspiration which carried them for- 
ward with matchless speed. They had passed so 
many dangers by flood and field, the men with 
one eye, the women with one tooth for three 
hags, the man-eaters, demons, giants, sorcerers, 
that Orpheus was moved to finer music than 
ever before sounded since he strung his harp 
with poet's heart-strings. And the stars, used 
only to the wild paeans of the billows, grew 
brighter as they listened to celestial harmonies, 
songs of triumphs past and victories yet to 
come. 

How they sailed up the Danube, and out into 
the circumfluent sea, amid its grand, majestic 
symphonies, is an old tale and often told. By 
some miraculous process, not quite clear to 
mortal vision, they discovered the source of the 
Nile, carried the sentient ship, which could feel 
fatigue, on their shoulders, through deceitful 
mirage and sweltering Lybian deserts, and finally 



28o Along the Bosphorus. 

reached Grecian shores. They landed, and drew 
up into a grotto on the rock the self-acting ves- 
sel, which so long had been obedient to the 
strain and wear of tempestuous years. Shortly 
afterward she was translated into Heaven. You 
may see her in Summer nights, shining among 
the starry host immortal. 

Many and sad had been the changes made in 
Thessaly by the years, whose number is not re- 
corded. The names of the crew of the Aryo 
had become part of stories told by gray-haired 
fathers and mothers in the long wintry evenings 
— legends of young men sailing off into the un- 
known darkness of desolate, gloomy seas, seek- 
ing far countries and hidden treasure, and never 
heard from except in airy whispers and uncer- 
tain rumors. They shook their heads, and their 
time-worn eyes filled with tears as they repeated, 
with moans like the moaning sea, "most likely 
drowned long ago, long ago, long ago." The 
Heroes, wofully lessened in numbers, were so 
haggard, scorched, and weather-beaten that, at 
first, no one believed these ghastly faces belonged 
to the beautiful youths who dashed out, fair and 
free, to fulfill the fate predestined from the 
foundation of the world, but of which the sagest 
seer could not forewarn them. 

When they were recognized mourning was 
mingled with rejoicing, and the shouting multi- 
tudes crowded round the gallant band, and, in 
barbaric pomp, preparation for a mighty feast 
went on. But the king, iEson, father of Jason, 
was so enfeebled by age as to be unable to iden- 



The First Voyage: ijpo B.C. 2§l 

tify his own son, and his cracked, shrill voice 
sounded like a grasshopper's chirp. Then Medea, 
at the command of her husband, removed the 
blood from the old man's veins and filled them 
with the juice of certain herbs, restoring to him 
the vigor of youth, and the sweet pleasures that 
wait on early years and the morning hours. 
Capacities for enjoyment, long perished within 
him, revived again, and the voice of a singer 
came back, with the fresh color in cheek and 
eye- 
Turn to the poets of the first ages for the story 
of Medea's wicked life. One of her crimes was 
done the day of the festivities at Iolchos, in 
honor of the Argonauts. The daughters of Peli as 
begged her to make their father's infirmities van- 
ish by the same painless arts she had used on 
the king, and she consented, but said she would 
employ a different process. By her direction the 
dutiful daughters cut their father to pieces and 
boiled them in her magic caldron. But there 
was no restoration for body or spirit. The 
treacherous Medea allowed the flesh of Pelias to 
be consumed, and did no miracle. Nothing was 
left, not even a handful of ashes to give the holy 
rites of sepulture. 

It is a sort of surprise to read that she, who 
could renew the youth of others, by transform- 
ing a perishing body, should allow herself to 
suffer death. Perhaps she foresaw higher felic- 
ity in the after-life beyond the tomb; for we 
read that she waited in hope and eager hero- 
worship till the shade of the swift- footed Achilles 



282 



Along the Bosphorus. 



reached the underworld; then she crossed the 
lonesome Styx, and married him in the Elysian 
Fields. 

There is a class of disenchanters who maintain 
tjiat the superhuman actors and the entire myth 
of the Golden Fleece is nothing but a commercial 
enterprise idealized. The Greeks, from the be- 
ginning, have been a busy race, holding maritime 
supremacy. Never at rest, the passion for ad- 
venture has been one of their marked character- 
istics, and commerce has always been held in 
respect among them. The launching of the 
Argo, and the roaring monsters by the way open- 
ing their abysmal mouths, were only such bulls 
and bears as assail the speculator who starts out 
to take a flyer in Wall Street. The elements 
were personified ; divinities to be adored with 
fear and propitiated by sacrifice, and the various 
forces confronted were, by the poetic Pagans, 
given shape and name to suit the brutality op- 
posed to the high courage of the heroes we call 
fabulous. Iron will and valor that shrinks from 
no enemy, seen or unseen, must win the game 
at last, despite tremendous combinations and 
powers which, in this story, are but types of 
human nature. 

Eeduced to plain fact, if fact there be, about 
thirteen hundred years before our era, some 
Grecian sailors started for the Euxine to create 
a profitable trade in fish, corn, wool and gold. 
They were lawless freebooters, and from various 
coasts stole men, women and children, creating 
a considerable slave trade, the relic of which 



The First Voyage: ijgo B.C. 283 

endures to our own time in the traffic for Circas- 
sian girls. Various kings have tried to suppress 
the pirates from that day to this, and the law 
against it stands in the statutes ; but in old 
Colchis (Circassia) there is yet many a maiden 
with sun-bright hair waiting to be sought and 
bought by those who go out seeking brides for 
such as dwell in kings' palaces. 

The disenchanters hold that the harpies, rep- 
resented as winged old women, were merely 
locusts devouring the substance of King Phineus ; 
and, stripped of color and poetic drapery, the 
idea of sending out a dove before the Argo was 
but the advance of a pilot vessel through the 
dangerous passage to the Euxine. A small craft, 
bearing the name of another bird, the swallow, 
is used by Turks at the present time to examine 
the channel. Both birds are esteemed as omens 
of good fortune and names appropriate for light 
boats. When, as tradition runs, the Argo, by the 
separation of the Symplegades, happily passed 
through, but lost a portion of its end, which the 
floating rocks, striking together, caught hold of 
and jammed, the meaning is that the ship, hasten- 
ing onward, was injured by a rock and lost its 
rudder. 

On the spot made sacred by Jason's sacrifice 
to the twelve gods, there long endured the re- 
mains of a Greek altar to Jupiter and Cybele, 
of which fragments are still found, shattered and 
crumbling. It is the highest hill on the Bos- 
phorus, and commands the entrance to the dreaded 
Euxine. The site of the shrine, consecrated 



284 



Along the Bosfihorus. 



twelve centuries and more before Christ, is now 
the hermitage of a holy man. endowed with 
oracular wisdom, who is consulted by seamen 
before venturing a long voyage into the Black 
Sea. Older than history is the legend that the 
plain below it is the one where grew the witch's 
herbs, gathered in the moonlight, with which 
Medea "did renew old Jison." 

Strangely do fact and fable mingle, in many- 
colored strand, the threads which lead us. Grop- 
ing backward, through the dimness of more than 
three thousand years, and peering into the 
darkness, we find live truth in the heathen 
myths. 

I write in a Greek village, called, from the im- 
memorial years, Tkerapia^ "the Place of Heal- 
ing and a gentle intervale on the Asian shore 
is yet the resort of native women in search of a 
plant which they believe prolongs youth, and 
robs of his due the common enemy with the 
scythe and the hour-glass. Since we have lived 
in Turkey I have received more than one letter 
from anxious unknown inquirers, asking if the 
herb called serkys might be transplanted to the 
United States, and if I can testify to its delight- 
ful effect in restoring a lost youth to faded 
faces. 

I may be permitted to decorate my page with 
a portion of one of these epistles, sent me from 
one of the rural districts of the South. After a 
few rhetorical flourishes concerning the pleasure 
the writer has had in certain printed words of 



The First Voyage: 1390 B.C. 285 

mine, which I should blush to repeat, she plunges 
into the pith of her intent and purpose : 

" I have read in the newspapers that there is 
a kind of a plant that keeps people young and 
handsome, and I have often wished I could get 
a holt of some ; and if it isn't too much trouble 
and expense, would you mind asking about it, 
and send me a few slips by mail, done up in wet 
moss, or a paper of the seed, or the dried leaves 
or root, with directions how it is to be taken; 
or if it is an ointment for external use, a jar or 
bottle 0. 0. D. 

" I am not very far gone ; have only lost my 
complexion and have crow's feet ; you know 
American women get old so early ; and I am 
very thin. I have tried the receipts for fatten- 
ing given in the papers, without helping me any, 
and would be ever so much obliged if you could 
spare time for this. Maybe you wouldn't mind 
finding out by some native lady who has tried it 
on herself ; for I am afraid of poisons or some- 
thing going wrong, as I nearly ruined my stom- 
ach with alkali water when I was in Arizona. 
I am now keeping a colored school in Georgia. 
You know a single woman naturally wants to 
look as well as possible, and I once was not a 
very homely girl, if looking glasses are to be 
believed. I suppose the beauties of the Orient- 
als know all about this renewer ; and as some 
great person says — I forget who — beauty is first, 
second and third to a woman. You know the 



286 Along the Bosfihorus. 



first question about a man is, what did he say ? 
about a woman, how did she look? 

U A prompt answer will much, oblige your 
friend and well wisher always, 

" LUCINDA BEASLEY. 

" P. S. Please send a few used postage stamps. 
I am making a collection, and have none of 
Persia or Egypt." 

Oh ! my Lucinda ! You have ventured on a 
sadder search than Ponce de Leon made when 
he went wandering up and down the Everglades 
of Florida. I have inquired diligently of the 
wise, and learn that nothing made by mortal 
wisdom and skill can banish the crow's feet or 
bring back the vanished bloom to brighten your 
maiden cheek. Among the unalterable decrees 
it is written ; the decision can never be re- 
versed. In the sear and yellow you must abide. 

Revenons a nos moutons. Now comes the 
worst the disenchanters have to tell of the poetic 
myth of the Golden Fleece. From the side of 
frosty Caucasus there runs a river with gold- 
bearing sand, once a very Pactolus for wealth to 
its owners. It lies on the southern coast of the 
desolate rainy sea, which was the terror and 
despair of primitive navigators. The country 
of old was subject to depredations of covetous 
princes and barbarian hordes, and the famous 
water-course, glowing with grains of gold, was 
guarded well for its inestimable treasure. So 
rich a mine, not in narrow fissures, but a spark- 
ling flood, naturally became the resort of specu- 



The First Voyage: 1390 B. C. 



287 



lators by land and sea. Its value was noised 
abroad through the length, of the Mediterranean 
countries, and its possession was the subject of 
many a bloody struggle. Anciently, and even 
in historic times, the unskilled miners of Colchis, 
shepherds through many generations, used to 
lay a skeepskin in the bed of the shallow 
stream, which we would hardly call a river. 
The wool caught and held the shining sand in 
its thick mat ; it was then hung upon a tree, 
and, when dried, the particles of precious dust 
were shaken out; and lo! you have the whole 
fable of the Golden Fleece- 



II. 



THE SECOND VOYAGE, A. D. 1884. 

The reader, dear to heart and fancy, who has 
kindly followed the sail of the first long boat 
which, entered the Bosphorus, may perhaps ac- 
company me on one of the present day — not a 
frail sail-boat, but a handsome steamer. Many 
such ply, from sunrise to sunset, along the shores 
and touch at the principal villages which dot 
both sides of the strait. They are well-built, 
clean, and so admirably managed accidents are 
almost unknown; and it is a pleasant thing to 
watch, the passengers come and go. To reach 
the landing one must cross Galata Bridge, where 
the Orient meets and mingles with the West. 
This pontoon spans the Golden Horn and unites 
Stamboul, under whose dark cypresses, hung 
with aerial traditions, the scent of human blood 
still lingers, and Pera, the noisy, modern city, a 
cheap imitation of Paris. Streaming across the 
bridge, at the rate of a hundred thousand a day, 
is a ceaseless procession of people of every nation, 
tongue, dress, religion ; and in the tideless, land- 
locked harbor floats every sort of ship from the 
heaviest ironclads — the great war vessels of the 
Sultan — to the light caique, the airiest, most 
graceful craft ever shaped by builder of boats. 

Strange and curious are the studies on Galate 
(288) 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 289 

Bridge. Such flashing color, outlandish cos- 
tume, grotesque shape, such exhaustless varieties 
of the human face, starting far-reaching associa- 
tions in the remote past, are to be found nowhere 
on the globe as in this narrow pass. Here, con- 
spicuous among the complex multitude, beggars 
most do congregate. They crowd, in pic- 
turesque rags, exhibiting disease and deformities 
unutterably disgusting. Children plead with 
professional whine, and gypsies follow and be- 
siege your carriage till you are glad to throw 
out a coin to get rid of them. 

Nearly one-third of the human race hold the 
fierce faith of Arabia, praying five times with 
face toward Mecca to-day, and all the days ; and 
this night, in the streets of Stamboul, when the 
watchman cries : " Who goes ? " he hears from 
the Mohammedan, along with his answer, 
" There is no God but God." Well is the Mos- 
lem named the Faithful. In the sacred month of 
Ramazan, from sunrise to sunset, no true be- 
liever touches food or water. It is the holy 
month of Predestination, kept in memory of the 
revelation of the Koran, by the Archangel 
Israfel, the word of the uncreated God which de- 
scended in leaves from Heaven, verse by verse, 
to his prophet. When the weary thirty days of 
self-denial are ended, comes the grand fete of 
Bairam ; three days of feasting and revel. At 
night the six thousand lamps of St. Sophia are 
kindled, the many minarets are ringed with 
lights, showing in the darkness like glittering 
crowns lei down from Heaven. Texts from the 
19 



290 Along the Bosphorus. 



Koran burst in illumination from slender towei 
to tower ; the mosques, rounded domes and taper 
spires are festooned with ropes of lamps ; the 
Bosphorus reflects trembling ribbons of flame 
from the palaces on its shores ; and blazing 
globes on high flaunt in the face of the stars, 
seeming close under the sky ; the guns of the 
forts thunder; echo answering echo from the 
girdling towers of the city of many fames, and 
Olympus, li high and hoar," watches the scene 
which poet has never sung and artist can never 
picture. 

And yet, compared with its ancient splendors, 
Constantinople is but the reflected ray from a 
fading sunset. Once the fitful winds of the Mar- 
mora brought gems, spices, myrrh, balsam of 
furthest India. Ivory, gold-dust, silks, carpets, 
perfumes, came by caravan from Persia and 
Arabia. Every luxury poured into the lap of 
the most voluptuous of cities, which disputed 
with Borne pre-eminence of riches and numbers. 
It had been swept by tempests of armies before 
it fell under the scimetar of the Turk. The 
conquerors of the world all came this way, Per- 
sian, Macedonian, Carthagenian, Bomao, Genoese 
Venetian ; and the walls which circled Byzan- 
tium like a regal diadem were gashed and scar- 
red by catapult and battering-ram ages before 
gun-powder was dreamed of. We can see the 
breach over which the last of the Constantines 
looked out, and, foreseeing his destiny, asked 
forgiveness of his friends, and with the courage 
of a Christian, serenely put oft' the imperial pur- 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 291 

pie, that no man might recognize his corpse, 
and fearlessly went forth to meet the coming 
doom. 

Seraglio Point is the fairest spot in this his- 
toric region; and, whatever view is taken of the 
matchless panorama, that promontory domi- 
nates and draws the eye, even from the myriad 
ships, lying, like birds, afloat on the flushed 
water. It is unspeakably beautiful, and has no 
peer for situation. In its treasury, palaces, tem- 
ples, the pride and accumulated wealth of cen- 
turies culminated, and in its libraries the science 
and learning of olden time were hoarded. After 
the Asian conquest the Emperors adopted the 
magnificence of the Persians. Not Pharaoh, 
not Ahab in his ivory house, Nero on his golden 
throne, Indian Mogul, Mexican monarch, or 
Peruvian Inca ever beheld such pomp and daz- 
zling state as were enthroned in the court of 
Constantinople when it was capital of the Eoman 
Empire of the East. 

In later ages the delicious gardens of Se- 
raglio Point shadowed veiled and delicate beau- 
ties, of the royal harem. Musky odalisques, 
soft Circassians, sweetest and daintiest, pelted 
each other with flowers, and, under the snowing 
roses, waited in unsunned loveliness for the 
coming of the one man who was their sole com- 
munication with the outside world. Deep and 
singular emotion follows the track of memory ; 
for this was once the center of the brain and 
heart of Islam, where twenty-five sultans held 
their court. It is said servants lived and died 



292 Along the Bosfikorus. 



without knowing all the devious windings, re- 
cesses, and secret chambers in this scene of im- 
perial wars and loves. Then every class, down 
to the scullions, wore a distinctive uniform ; and, 
in the time of Murad Fourth, nine hundred 
horses were led to silver mangers by Bulgarian 
grooms. The " slipper money " of the Sultana was 
the revenue of a province. The favorite oda- 
lisque was the owner of one hundred silver car- 
riages, and the treasury was rich enough to 
build fleets with silver anchors and silken cord- 
age. Ambassadors were received in stately, 
sumptuous ceremony, between two walls of silk 
and gold. The ancient chroniclers repeat, till it 
becomes a proverb, learning for the Frank, 
money for the Jew, pomp for the Osmanli. 

In rooms lined with bright marbles the Padi- 
shas went to hear aged dervishes read the Tliou- 
sand-and- One Nights / thirty-two muezzins, with 
solemn, far-reaching voices, called the hours of 
prayer from the minarets; and the father of a 
hundred sons, the man before whom all other 
men are but as dust, knelt at the cry "There is 
no God but God." With his forehead bowed to 
the earth, he repeated the ninetj^-nine beautiful 
names of Allah, and thought on the Golden 
Garden, kept for the faithful, 

44 And of the houris, pleasure's perfect daughters." 

Among the buildings grouped on Seraglio 
Point is a small octagonal palace, of Saracenic 
architecture, called the Bagdad Kiosk. They 
tell us the material for its composition was 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 2 93 

brought by caravan from Persia, and it is ele- 
gantly wrought, as some airy toy; exquisitely 
finished as a lady's jewel-case. And a jewel- 
case it was, when whatever was most sacred and 
most precious was hidden from vulgar eyes be- 
yond its silver door. The pearls of the East 
sparkled in the screened apartments, which are 
lined with jasper, lapis lazuli, alabaster, and 
tortoise-shell, cushioned with eider down and 
stuffs now named with the lost arts. It is 
lovely* as the enchanted fabric with which Alad- 
din surprised his father-in-law. It has no unfin- 
ished window, and the very touch of the Ara- 
bian is in the bright blues and reds of the 
ceiling, and the wonderful figures of its geo- 
metrical lines. 

Of the images of breathing, smiling life in the 
jeweled rooms, we can but dimly guess. They 
were forbidden to the eyes and thoughts of all 
save one, and imagination falters before the 
hangings, rich and rare, which curtained the most 
holy place. The august center of Ottoman 
greatness, home of heroes, " with bodies of iron, 
souls of steel," is lonesome and melancholy now; 
gone to decay and neglect. The long swell of 
the Summer sea breaks into sweet rhythms of 
sound on many a pearly beach and rock-bound 
shore ; but nowhere is that musical cadence so 
suggestive as here. The palaces on the water's 
edge have been destroyed by fire, and the sera- 
glio, with its inmates fair and faithful, is re- 
moved to the heights of Yildiz, beyond Pera; 
but the fountain which bubbled with crimson 



-94 



Along the Bosphorus. 



foam — poetry, romance, history, tragedy have 
here an abiding place and cannot be transferred 
nor burned away. 

One day, when I sat on the deck of a steamer, 
enjoying the tranquil, drowsy air, thinking of 
the venerable past and watching the languid 
wavelets pulsing against the loose stones, I was 
roused from reverie by a party of tourists com- 
ing up the stairs. There is a peculiar, penetra- 
tive quality belonging to the voice of my coun- 
try, making it easily distinguishable. Not that 
it is pitched so very high ; but from some cause 
to me unknown, it has a certain tension which 
compels hearing. (I use the word tension 
applied to the violin string, rather than the 
sewing machine.) It does not caress the ear, as 
Charlotte Bronte exquisitely expressed the 
charm of the voice best loved by her, but rather 
goes into it and humming through the head, 
sharply, incisively, and always unmistakably. 

Well I knew them as they crossed the plank 
and filed up the gangway, that party of Ameri- 
can tourists. First came the courier — a lank, 
vicious-looking Greek — leading his train, then 
four or five gentlemen, with white scarfs dang- 
ling down their hat brims, a little tarnished 
embroidery and scant fringe at the ends, identify- 
ing the pilgrim from the furthest East; a Pro- 
fessor in gold spectacles, from Andover, I think, 
general answerer of questions 5 an ancient maiden 
carrying the usual red-backed Murray, reticule, 
and opera-glass. She wore a Saratoga wave, 
which w r eakly broke over her forehead, and a 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 295 

liat with, narrow brim, turned up by a rosette 
which might have been coquettish in its day, 
but that day was in a far country and some pre- 
historic epoch. 

My attention was caught by a weather-beaten 
old lady in a tattered and distracted bonnet and 
suit of rusty alpaca. She looked tired to death, 
yet anxious to see and eager to spend the expir- 
ing struggle in pursuit of knowledge. Holding 
her hand was a blush-rose young girl, the ten- 
derest, loveliest thing, who addressed her as 
Grandma, with a smile whose bright warmth 
could be almost felt, like sunshine. They 
scuffled noisily about, and after considerable 
racket were quieted and snugly settled. My 
seat happened to be near two young gentlemen, 
who had reached the weary point in life where 
man delights not-— No, nor woman neither ; the 
juice was gone; only the dry rind remained; 
and this when, by appearance, they could not 
have worn away more than twenty-four tiresome 
years on this dull planet. I could not choose 
but hear, and, in fact, did not, as they went on 
somewhat after this wise: 

"Jo, what are you eyeing down there in the 
deep water ? " 

Jo, without stirring or looking up: 

" A possible President, my Thomas." 

" A harmless lunacy, Joseph. By way of 
amendment, let me say an impossible one." 

"And what do you see?" cuttingly retorted 
the unabashed Jo. 

"See! Gulls!" observed Thomas, with the 



Along the BospJwrus. 



significant self-conscious air of the liabitual 
punster. 

"A blighting sarcasm. Any idiots about? " 

" No. Why ? Do you feef lonesome? " 

"Not while you exist," responded the satiric 
Joseph; and with dreary intervals of rest, after 
such blistering wit, the young men leaned over 
the rail and stole glances at the blush rose. In 
loud whispers they irreverently spoke of the 
mateless bird, meaning the maiden in pursuit 
of knowledge, and she, in return, took no pains 
to conceal her aversion to what she styled 
" those reptiles!" 

(N. B. It is difficult for tourists to avoid hat- 
ing each other.) 

A youth with attenuated mustache, who had 
spent a year in England, gave variety to the con- 
versation by delivering his convictions on the 
subject of privileged and middle classes and. 
vested rights, ending many sentences with u Be 
Jove ! " We secretly took his measure and 
rated the counterfeit at what he was worth. 
The first two blase companions called him 
" smarty." 

One very noticeable figure sat in the best 
chair, apart from her fellow travelers. A woman 
in rich belongings, with a haughty manner, 
which plainly said : " I am among Cook's 
tourists, but not to be classed with them." 
About thirty years of age, she would have been 
a superb beauty, but for the cold expression of 
contempt (perhaps at herself in her present 
position), a scowl that came and went, marring 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 297 

the statuesque features. Occasionally she glanced 
over her shoulder, like one pursued. "Was she a 
fugitive traveling with these people for protec- 
tion, or was it only a pursuing memory which 
hovered at her back ? A woman with a history 
not written on the imperious brow too deep for 
a surface reading. 

The old lady clung helplessly to the grand- 
daughter, who was all sweetness and color, the 
rare tints in her cheek, fleeting as the vanishing 
hues of the rainbow, but for her brief season of 
bloom a radiant apparition that illumined the 
whole deck. Her grandmother called her Pussy ; 
and the grave, dignified Turks gazed fixedly at 
her in their solemn fashion, as if thinking she 
should be veiled and locked in. 

The tourists were from Palestine, the usual 
route toward Constantinople. That was plain 
by the olive-wood cuff buttons of the gentle- 
men, the Bethlehem cross of Pussy and a pair 
of Oairene ear-rings, which betrayed Egypt. 

" Well, I do declare, this is comfortable ! " said 
the old lady. " After the dreadful donkeys and 
the sea-sickness, jest to set and take it all in 
without stirring a step ! " 

" Did not your experiences amply repay you? " 
asked the New Englander, reprovingly. "This 
is an educational tour. The opportunity for 
such self-culture doesn't come every day. Oh ! " 
she went on, ardently, her Saratoga wave back- 
sliding in a bias line to the crown of the hat, 
" what a privilege ! what a privilege ! " 

"No; it doesn't pay me/" returned the old 



Along the Bosphorus. 



lady with emphasis. "Nothing can pay for 
thirty days on a horrible horse and that dreadful 
one in the Valley of Fire. Mr. Cook! 11 she 
called out to the courier, who glared at her like 
a tiger. 

" Not Mr. Cook, Grandma," said Pussy, taking 
a card from her pocket. " Let me spell it. Pap- 
parigopoulo. These Greek names are so hard." 

" Well, Pussy, I don't care. He's Cook's 
agent, and I should go crazy trying to remember 
Pop — what's his name? Mr. Cook, what's this 
place we're comin' to? " 

The noble Greek almost foamed at the mouth 
while he rattled off the speech prepared for the 
point where the sweet waters of Asia meet the 
rapid currents of the Bosphorus. 

And here I pause a moment to say, would 
you have one day like the stuff which dreams 
are made of, an idyllic day, that will stand apart 
from other pictured memories far and near, go to 
the Valley of Sweet Waters, the beauty-spot of 
the Bosphorus. In the lazy afternoons it is the 
resort of lovely ladies, pallid as lilies, robed in 
vaporous draperies of snow-drift and thistle- 
down, scented with rose and musk. • White 
veils, dim, mysterious, hide their faces, all but 
the swimming, lustrous eyes. Oh! what eyes 
they have ! Bright as stars, black as death. 
Dreamy pictures they make, reclining on the 
crimson cushions of the rocking caique, which is 
draped with India shawl or Persian hangings. 
The armed slave in the stern is clad in barbaric 
splendor, the rowers in wide white trousers and 



The Second Voyage, A.B. 1884. 299 

scarlet jackets stiff* with, gold embroidery- 
Greek boatmen, bearing the old names that can 
never die. 

It would hardly be a surprise should visible 
Loves and Graces start from the azure overhead 
to shower roses on the warm, rippling sea, to 
twine the gay vessels with garlands and drop a 
flowery wreath on the head of some uncrowned 
princess. Out of the swift currents they glide, 
silent as ghosts, past the grim towers, hoary sum- 
mits scarred and seamed, venerable with age, and 
float tke light craft without the dip of an oar in 
the lace-like shadows of the chestnut leaves 
which bend to kiss them. Among the ferns on 
the reedy margin an enchantress is 'waiting, ah ! 
for whom? Under a parasol of fleecy mist, 
waiting, waiting till the watchers are asleep, till 
the nightingale pours out its plaint to the rose, 
till evening unfurls her waveless banner of amber, 
pink and violet, fringed with gold, and the silver 
horse-shoe of the waning moon leaves its track 
on the lulling waters. This enchantress has no 
secrets hidden in witches' caldron, nor invisible 
tangling nets spread for unwary feet, to catch 
helpless prisoners. Her marvelous charm is be- 
yond the reach of words. A witchery, lies in 
the depths of those unfathomable eyes, compell- 
ing mortals who come within their subtle magic 
to fall down and worship forever. 

Let us watch in the twilight; for a messenger 
will bring a love letter from shore, and, kneeling, 
offer it, in a dainty basket lined with satin and 
covered with cloth of gold and crimson. It con* 



300 Along the Bosphorus. 



tains hieroglyphs not of Egypt. The paling 
afterglow reveals an ivory fan, a bouquet of jas- 
mine and heliotrope, a silken tassel, some sugar 
candy, and a piece of trailing vine. One by one 
the love-signs are lifted by jeweled fingers and 
carefully scanned ; and this is the reading of the 
symbolic writing: The fan is a wish to pay an 
evening visit ; the flowers that they shall walk 
in the garden under the trailing vines; the 
sweets, they shall have refreshments; and the 
tassel, being called shuharreh ) means shareb, the 
sound of the word signifying wine. I 

The answer returned is a leaf of aloe-plant, 
several black cummin-seecls, a scrap of gauze, 
and a string of a musical instrument, which, be- 
ing interpreted, mean : The aloe, patience, be- 
cause it will live months without rain ; the lover 
must wait ; the black cummin-seeds, so many 
evenings hence; the scrap of gauze, that she 
will be dressed in evening costume and ready to 
receive visitors ; and the guitar-string gives a 
promise that the night shall be filled with music. 
The loveliest of our love letters cannot equal 
this message, expressed in bloom and perfume. 
No, not though it be written from the golden 
inkstand incrusted with diamonds which Mah- 
moud the Second left in the imperial treasury, 
as a testimonial that his victories were not ex- 
clusively in the field of battle and of blood. 

The long, lustrous Asiatic eyes, " the Paradise 
eyes," are wonderfully m ague tic, shining languidly 
beneath the jet black lashes, drawing us, even 
against our will. Under their compelling charm 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 30I 

we are in danger of forgetting our own tourists. 
Let us return to the steamer. 

They listened intently to the guide's explana- 
tion — all except a pair under one umbrella — a 
homely man of middle age and a plain-faced 
girl, a teacher, I should guess. Eapt and self- 
absorbed, they gazed at each other admiringly 
and, through the long recitation, kept up a 
murmurous whispering. No need to tell those 
words which seemed to separate them from their 
fellow-travelers ; for they were lovers, within 
and around them a new heaven and a new earth. 
Even this elder world appeared fresh and unworn 
to them, as it was to the first and fairest of lovers 
when the evening and the morning were the 
seventh day. 

Not for them the song — 

" O Paradise, O Paradise, 
The world is growing old." 

Under the dingy umbrella — cotton, at that — on 
the deck of " Steamer Number 64," lay the last 
boundary of the Garden of Eden. 

Said the blonde cynic, sneeringly : " The spoons 
don't seem to know there is anything worth see- 
ing but themselves. However," he added, con- 
solingly, "it's a comfort to know it won't last 
long. Now, if it was Pussy, I could stand it 
better." 

" Wasn't it somewhere along here that 
Andromeda was chained to the rocks ? " asked 
the old lady. 

"No; that was at Joppa, Grandma," 



3©2 Along the Bosphorus. 



" Sure enough, Pussy, so it was. I get things 
so mixed." 

" At Joppa," said the Scholar, kindly, beam- 
ing on the poor old creature, as he picked up her 
parasol and raised it to screen her from the 
freshening breeze. " That was a deep myth. 
She was probably a Canaanite, an offering to the 
forces of Nature. You remember the fearful 
surf at the harbor and the nanow way through 
the rocks ? " 

" That T do ! " said Grandma. 

" And the Greeks made a sacrifice of the 
beautiful virgin as their most precious possession" 
— he looked at the pretty face of Pussy — " an 
offering to the winds and waves in the times of 
fear which died out before the higher, sunnier 
faith in human gods." 

He turned to the book again, which he shared 
with a clear-eyed boy, evidently his son; a 
promise of bright manhood : a youth glad to 
learn, willing to work, not thirsting to snatch 
the prize of glory without the dust of the race; 
one of whom any father might be proud. 

" What else did the old heathens do along 
here, Pussy ? " broke in the high, shrill voice. 
" You know this is an educational tour and we 
must study as we go." 

" I can't think of all, or of half what ! " said 
the artless girl, fumbling the leaves of the guide- 
book. 

" Well, well ; read something. I don't like 
Mr. Cook's speeches. He runs his words together 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 303 

She read, and then explained : 

"There's the Giant's Mountain. In the time 
of the Argonauts, Pollux killed the king of the 
country, and erected his monument here, and 
planted it with a laurel tree." 

" You don't say that's the highest point on 
the Bosphorus! It seems rather small to a 
woman raised in the White Mountains. Why " 
— her voice flew up to the ledger lines above — 
"'taint no higher'n the Palisades of the Hudson. 
Looks like 'em, too ! " 

"That is what every traveler says," observed 
the thoughtful Professor. 

" The enchanted herbs which renew youth 
grew on the hill yonder," continued Pussy. 
" The old witches used to gather them in the full 
of the moon." 

"I wish I had some of that 'erb now!" 
groaned out Grandma. 

" The blessed law of compensations holds yet ! " 
whispered the blonde cynic to his two com- 
patriots. " She can't get it. Let us be thank- 
ful." 

There were three widows in the party where- 
of I write, and they clung together not so much 
to enliven each other as to club their loneliness. 
The dusty and mournful veils, which should have 
hung down their backs, fluttered, like black flags, 
in the breeze, and their spirits had profited little 
by the tour of Europe the American prescription 
for sorrow. They were no longer young, and 
had the worn look of women whose introspective 
life is one of self-denial j hungry minds in tired 



Along the Bosphorus. 



bodies. I saw it plainly, as one endowed with 
the vision and faculty divine looks into the 
hearts of suffering humanity. Grief had fallen 
on them like frost ; their holiday was sad ; still 
they kept a keen lookout ; nothing of importance 
escaped their notice ; and one was working at a 
diary — doubtless a melancholy record, a long 
contrast between these days and the blessed time 
when a dear presence was a lovely light in the 
past. Could I look over her shoulder I might 
read of a voice that was sweeter than the ring- 
dove's, now lost in the everlasting silence ; of 
star-shine and flower scent ; of the joy of 
meeting, the pain of parting, in another phase of 
existence so foreign to this it might indeed be in 
another world. 

My three widows (called Three Black Crows 
by the blonde cj 7 nic) watched the veiled Oriental 
ladies coming and going at the various towns. 

" Are they all widows ? " asked one. 

"No," replied the patient, answering Profes- 
sor. " A Turk never appears in public with his 
wife. It would be a deadly insult to ask after 
the health of one, or even to know of her ex- 
istence. Among the higher class, you notice, 
each has her jet black Negro attendant. Spruce, 
tall fellows, in no wise bowed down by their 
own position. Well do the Arabs say the chil- 
dren of Shem are prophets, of Japheth, kings, 
of Ham, slaves," 

A country clergyman and wife were of the 
party which interested me. His people had 
given him a long vacation, allowed his salary to 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 305 

go on as usual, and, at the last moment, the pas- 
tor had been enriched by a handsome donation 
from a wealthy member of the church. You 
know that odd communicant, who saves in dimes 
and quarters, and then, suddenly and unexpect- 
edly, does such a generous act, you wonder why 
you ever called the old man " close." The min- 
ister is easily identified by the white (not very) 
neck-tie, and the worn black suit. His wife had 
had the transient prettiness of the village beauty, 
and firmly clung to a fond superstition that curls 
behind the ears are becoming ; otherwise she was 
dressed in accordance with the prejudices of civ- 
ilization. 

This was a long dreamed-of holiday ; and now 
it was come, she had a scared look, as though 
bewildered at finding herself so far from her 
own cooking-stove. 

I noticed, and was very pleased to do so, that 
he touched her hand, now and then, as if to re- 
assure the timid, startled thing, who blushed 
scarlet when she saw I was looking. Easy to 
see, he had profited by the chances of self-cul- 
ture, while her day-dreams and air-castles had 
been flying up the kitchen chimney. But he 
did not despise her, though, mentally, and in all 
outward graces, he had outgrown the wife of his 
youth. "When he mildly smiled on her sallow 
face it brightened for a moment ; but her eyes 
had a faraway look, thinking of the children at 
home, borrowing trouble, as my countrywomen 
are wont to. This is her ideal man — wiser, bet- 
ter than other men ; she worships accordingly, 
29 



306 Along the Bosphorus. 



and fully believes (fond, faithful heart!) if he 
only had the opportunity, he would make bis 
mark in New York, or Brooklyn, City of 
Churches. Under the sustaining belief, she does 
not sigh in discontent over her belongings, nor 
covet many talents. He is all — self nothing — 
in the sum of her life. Hers is the duty of 
ironing the napkin in which one talent is hid- 
den, and she secretly thinks the world knows 
nothing of its greatest men. She would color 
to the roots of her hair at a hint of such pride ; 
but you and I know her, my reader. 

She looks over his shoulder at the copious 
notes in his scratch -book. What fine writing 
she thinks it ! Plain as day another book of 
travels is to be dropped on a patient, long-suffer- 
ing public. Some heavy columns offered to, 
possibly accepted by their own religious newspa- 
per and gathered manna for his hungry flock in 
the old meeting-house — all garnered up in that 
scratch-book. 

The three widows hovered about this pair. 
Such a gentle disciple, moving in a halo of 
peace, attracts sorrowing souls, naturally, as am- 
ber draws straw, to borrow the comparison of 
poor Jeannie — heroine of the pathetic Carlyle 
tragedy. These observations flash through the 
mind like electric light ; but it requires some 
minutes to read them. The courier illustrates 
the saying, " The worst objection to the modern 
Greek is that he makes you forget his ancestors." 
Sulky to the travelers he conducts, he chatters 
glibly to a woman of his own nationality; § 



The Second Voyage, A.Z>. 1884. 367 

wild creature, bare-headed, except for her own 
jetty braids of hair, shot through with a sharp 
gilt arrow. She does not remind you of Helen, 
or Sappho, or Phryne ; by no means ; but there 
is a dangerous look in her bearing, as of a fierce 
dog chained ; and on occasion she might spring 
into the sparkling water, or stab you in your 
sleep, if baffled or bitterly wronged. Strangers 
in modern Athens say the old Greek fire lives 
even in the ashes of the violet-crowned city. 

Such are some of the voyagers on the Bos- 
phorus in the nineteenth century. And, after 
the fashion of those who believe human nature 
is the only thing which never changes, I ask, 
What material is here for romance to build 
upon ? The fabled streams have all been 
sounded, and there is no new Atlantis to be dis- 
covered, no empires to be conquered or founded, 
no dragons to be slain in the pleasant land, so 
placid it seems always afternoon. Are these 
the race of beings from whom the royal poets 
created demigods, and the Pagans formed their 
living models? These the women, tender and 
strong, who taught and guided their visions? 
The Yankee shamming the Englishman might 
possibly be a perfumed, flying Paris, in disguise ; 
and there cannot be two opinions as to who 
would win the golden apple inscribed " To the 
Fairest," could it be rolled along the dingy table- 
cloth at the table d'hote this evening. 

Blase New Yorkers are not the scions Nature 
chooses for her great men. By no stretch of 
poetic fiction can they be called god-like, wise* 



Along- the Bosfihorus. 



hearted or even like Telamonian Ajax, the clef], 
ant. I rather fancy heroic stuff rests, a power 
unused, in the person of the mild country, par- 
son. He may lack the brute courage of Grecian 
youth, born in the purple and trained to battle, 
with far-shadowing spears ; but he has a force 
at heart which teaches how r to die nobly. If I 
read him aright, some day, when the yellow 
fever is raging in the South and there is a cry 
for help, he is the sort of man to say, u Here is 
my opportunity for good,'' and to go out, not 
with martial music and shouts of applauding 
multitudes, like the heroes marching in valor 
and splendor through the ages long gone. He 
forsakes his adoring wife, whom he entirely 
loves, and rushes away in the night express to 
meet an enemy more deadly and poisonous than 
the great scaly dragon beyond the sea of dread 
and terror ; he returns in the long black box to 
which we give the kindly name of casket, and 
is the hero, not of the passing hour, but of 
eternity. That last parting — a fireside tragedy 
— has none of the elements of the picturesque. 
The armor of the earth-shakers, horse-hair crest 
glancing helm, bossy shield, belt bright with 
purple, and shining sword, are not for our hero,' 
ready to do and die. 

The short man, in ready-made clothes, cheap 
for cash, would cut a sorry figure on a back- 
ground of variegated marble. When he takes 
his life in his hand, the farewell is made in the 
library of the parsonage. The name suggests a 
well- ordered, ample room, holding a slight scent 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 3°9 

of Kussian leather, luxurious arm-chairs, sump- 
tuous volumes in carved cases, hangings that 
subdue sound and light, neither gloom nor glare 
in the atmosphere of seclusion and refinement. 
No such thing. The country parson's library is 
the reception room. In it he listens to stories of 
sorrow and of spite, which troubled members of 
his congregation — mainly women — pour into his 
patient ear. Here the •bashful young bride- 
groom comes to arrange for the happy day, 
slowly nearing ; mourners stray in from the 
streets, asking, Is there no balm in Gilead, is 
there no physician there ; and husband and wife 
— I have known more than one such instance — 
bring their quarrel and seek the minister's med- 
iation. On birthdays it is open to the children, 
and is the scene of the festive donation party 
and the Dorcas Sisterhood meetings. 

The book-shelves suggest work. Concord- 
ance, Cyclopedia, Josephus, Travels, Sermons ; 
solid old blocks, out of which modern discourses 
are hewed. Piles of newspapers lie on the inky 
desk, under the student's lamp, which has been 
the only witness of many a midnight wrestling in 
prayer, in weariness, and despondency — straits to 
which the wisest sooner or later sink, happy if 
they do not reach the desparing wail of the Ju- 
dean preacher : " All is vanity." Secret long- 
ings are to be subdued. His is the office of the 
faithful, the hopeful, the helpful. 

Above the door is the motto, " God Bless our 
Home." Several feverish chromos, or "chromios," 
as they are called in the pokeberry districts! 



Along the Bosfi horns. 



adorn the walls ; embroidered slippers rest on 
the rug, where the pattern in hectic worsted, 
bears slight proportion to the brown-holland 
ground. A small mirror, much tilted forward, 
is above the mantel. It reflects a vase of pam- 
pas-grass, on which dried butterflies are glued. 
The shelf is further embellished with a black 
panel picture of a one-legged stork, and plaques, 
gray and brown, with* pansies and wild roses, 
photographs of brides in wedding dress, and. 
first babies, white and flabby. These holiday 
trifles are presents from loyal, admiring parish- 
ioners. Nor does their generosity stop sud- 
denly. The slippery hair-cloth sofa is gay with 
tidies of riotous color, and is ornamented by a 
unique cushion of moderate softness, singular 
fabric, and lurid tint, called a crazy pillow. The 
struggle after the beautiful appears in the pine- 
bur frame surrounding the certificate of life 
membership in the Foreign Missionary Society, 
presented by his Bible-class ; and a china dove, 
hung by invisible thread from the ceiling, is a 
poor type of the spirit of peace brooding over 
the parsonage, her white wings folded. 

The angel of the house, in brown gingham 
dress, does not dream she is a heroine. Her path 
is regulated by the hard, strait line of duty, and 
to shirk or to shrink is not in her plan of life. 
There are neighbors, to whom the environment 
of this pair appears the "soft spot to drop into ;V 
and when our hero, unsung in epic, goes from it 
unsustained by applause or publicity, they think 
it's no more than a preacher ought to do, 



The Second Voyage, A.D. 1884. 3** 

Though when he pays the last full measure of 
devotion, they start up in plaintive obituary and 
head subscription papers for a highly respecta- 
ble tombstone. 

Do you suspect that Andromache is one of 
our widows, and Penelope, and Laodamia? 
Broken lives, moving in minor key, like sad, 
unwritten hymns; psalms of love and death, 
and life undying? Such they are, though they 
are neither gifted nor celebrated ; though their 
main study has been to make a little butter spread 
over a large slice of bread ; and they know how 
to turn dresses, cut down stockings, sew carpet- 
rags, can peaches, and make pickles. 

On second thought, I am not quite clear that 
the youngest one, who, in a faded way, hints of 
by-gone beauty, would spend ten years weaving 
a shroud for her father-in-law, if hard beset by 
suitors young and gay. Not quite sure, I say ; 
but may be she would wait so long for Ulysses. 
In this age of steam, one goes from Troy to 
Ithaca in three days. She would run no risk of 
an Enoch Arden affair, if she married in two 
years ; and I, for one, would fully justify her in 
it. But he must be a man in his prime who 
would woo her ; not one of those two bald elder- 
lies, sitting with the toes of their boots dug in 
the deck, like Bill Nye. 

And the pale professor, in the gold spectacles, 
if I mistake not, has in his soul the elements 
of heroism. There are no distressed virgins 
chained to rocks for sea-monsters to devour. If 
there were, Perseus would not be lacking. 



3t2 Along the Bosfihorus. 



Grandma and the flowerlike child go about the 
world collecting much good advice, still too ignor- 
ant to be conscious of danger. Should they need 
it, the every-day man, in a plain business suitj 
would strike a blow for them, be mighty in cour- 
age as the blameless knight whose 

" Strength was as the strength of ten, 
Because his heart was pare." 

The last glimpse I had of them, the Professor 
was earring the straggling old lady's shawl, and 
the school-teacher's riticule ; and again I said, 
this man is chivalrous as any knight- errant in 
the dim realm of the Fairy Queen. No ; thQ 
age of chivalry is not past so long as strength 
upholds weakness, and good men are to be found 
ready to resent insult and right a wrong, though 
it be only an insolent official cheating an acrid, 
withered old woman, who had better be at home. 
The age of Fable, the Kingdom of the Beautiful 
Myths, have passed. Those years have run out 
to the last golden grain of their sands. Summer 
sun or wintry moon will never shine on revel of 
monster, dragon, or giant more. In their graves 
they lie, well laid to rest ; and they have left no 
ghosts so haunt these classic shores. Phantoms, 
vast and wan, no longer troop under night's blue 
and starry pennon, but spirits of evil, cruelty 
and meanness stalk abroad, and confront the 
wanderers on sea and land. The same heavenly 
voices which urged on the adventurers building 
the Argo are thrilling high souls with the sense 
of great things, visible and invisible, to be strug- 
gled for. The same worthless prizes are offered 



The Second Voyage, A. D. 1884. 3I3 

for low natures to spend the energies of three- 
score years upon. The same mighty impulses 
stir in hearts ready for awful deeds of good or 
ill, that throbbed in the breasts of men before 
the first Pharaohs watched for Sirius to rise and 
put on the glory of the sun and order the swell- 
ings of the Nile. 

My tourists vanished like shades filing off in 
the dusk. Their voices lingered a moment 
under the seven antique plane-trees of Buyak- 
dere, where Godfrey de Bouillon planted his 
standards and encamped his army of Crusaders, 
and Gypsies now swarm and tent. Then 
they mingled with the dash of the black Sea 
surf and were lost as the Pilgrims went on their 
way, and I saw them no more. 

* * * # * 

There is an Arabic tradition that a wayfaring 
son of Ishmael once bought a seal, and found 
that, by some mistake, it was without a motto. 
He went to Solomon the Wise, and asked of him 
what legend he should have engraved on the 
blank chrysolite. The prophet, after a moment's 
silence, answered : " Write on your seal, and on 
all the seals, This, too, shall pass away J 1 



ONE WOMAN : A TRUE ROMANCE. 



Dueixg a three years' residence in the East, 
I heard personal histories so much wilder than 
fiction, that any attempt to color and embellish 
them would take from their seeming unreality. 
Under this feeling, I now tell the tale which 
follows as 'twas told to me. First, I had it from 
one of our missionaries, resident in Palestine; 
later by an English teacher in Athens, who had 
known my heroine in the beauty of her earliest 
youth, before the bright and morning star shot 
from its sphere. I violate no confidence. This 
revelation would not be given to the public did 
it profane the sanctity of home. Since her 
death, some years ago, the details of her reckless 
career were printed in French and English news- 
papers, with names, dates, places, exact as statis- 
tics of a Cyclopaedia. There may be living one 
who can yet be pained by mention of the name 
blazoned throughout Europe ; now passed be- 
yond our judgments to the bar of the Judge who 
can do no wrong. 

We will call her Lady Ellen — for she was 
born to the title ; of a line honorable and an- 
cient, illustrious through generations, especially 
distinguished in the reign of the most unhappy 
king of the unhappy house of Stuart. Her ancestor 
(3i4) 



1 



One Woman: A True Romance. 



315 



of that stormy period did the state good service, 
aud for daring deeds was recognized and re- 
warded as a faithful servant of the First Charles. 
The name is usually mentioned when my tale is 
told, but we will not record it now. This daugh- 
er received the education common to children 
of her rank, where one of the first considerations, 
if not the very first, is health. She was trained 
to walk, to run, to drive, to go through audac- 
ious feats on horseback, fearlessly as the start- 
ling gymnast who holds breathless the lovers of 
the gay circus ring. Excelling in out-door 
sports and exercises she had a well-knit, com- 
pact frame, a springing step of bounding elas- 
ticity, and grew to womanhood slowly ripening, 
maturing a strong, rich beauty, which the fever 
and fret of half a century could not dim. Such 
education of the physique, under the veiling 
skies and soft, moist airs of the Gulf Stream, de- 
velops full, fine contours ; and the pure tints, 
perishable with us, bloom on in England like 
Autumn roses. 

An English girl associates the idea of freedom 
with marriage. Then her horizon enlarges and 
brightens, and then begins her chance of shining 
in society. Till that time she is limited in 
pleasures ; at home or abroad, always under the 
watchful eye of a chaperone, till she looks to 
marriage as an escape from restraint, and usually 
accepts, unquestioning, the hand accepted for her 
by her parents. Arranging a marriage is an ex- 
pression unheard on thi$ side of the sea ; we 



3x6 



Along the Bosfifiorus. 



thinking the high contracting parties competent 
to arrange for themselves. 

At the age of eighteen, the Lady Ellen was 
betrothed to one she did not love; but she 
acquiesced without demur, and settlements 
were made in due form, contingencies in the 
future provided for, and the wedding was all 
that wealth and position could make brilliant. 
Her husband was high-born, a leader in Parlia- 
ment. At once their house became a fashion- 
able social center, and their country-place was 
second only to Holland House, as a resort for 
literary men and women, wits and poets. Those 
the world called famous were delighted to share 
the table-talk, which never sank to the level of 
the mediocre. Her consummate tact harmonized 
representatives of discordant parties, and capti- 
vated the guests trooped about her. The pride 
of her noble husband, who loved her with a 
great love, the ambition of her haughty father 
were fully satisfied. But the Lady Ellen — was 
she content ? 

Said a gentleman who knew her well : " She 
had in one, the elements which go to make up 
many women. She should have been named 
Pandora, 1 the All-Gifted.' " 

Various herself, all varieties pleased her. She 
had a full mind, and pliant as oil, knew every 
secret conveyed by the word adaptation. Who- 
ever came before her was made to feel that for 
the moment her entire interest centred in that 
person who absorbed, or seemed to absorb, her 
>yhole attention, 



One Wo?nan: A True Romance. 317 

A ruling trait of her character was boldness, 
and in her shining circle she was ambitious as 
Caesar, while apparently actuated only by grace- 
ful kindness, a cordial interest toward the court- 
iers who kissed the small, white hand. Bright 
and winsome, healthful as Hebe and seemingly 
as happy, who could guess that under the urbane 
sweetness called high -breeding, she carried resolve 
unquenchable; a soul of hidden fire, false as 
Hell ; her purpose to sweep over Europe, daz- 
zling the sight ; in the face of society, defiant of 
law and public opinion? 

Her daily walk was among fair women and 
brave men. About her were arms and coronets, 
stars, badges, orders, ambassadorial furniture, 
hereditary plate, historic pictures ; baubles men 
strive for, women live for and die for ; symbols 
of the rank and power of the patricians of Eng- 
land and of the world. But they paled before 
the Lady Ellen, whose majestic presence made 
such trifles valueless as the gewgaws of a 
country fair. No one could believe that in this 
meridian height she was plotting escape from 
the showy thralldom she deemed insufferable, 
about to break the marriage bond, which has 
been likened to a rope of diamonds or a garland 
of morning roses. She had two children, but 
they did not satisfy her heart, if she had a heart. 
Her husband she did not profess to love. She 
wanted power. Had she been bom a man she 
would have had opportunity to rule in cabinets, 
or would have made a career in the army. Such 
tireless energy and longing for the foremost 



31 8 Along the Bosphorus. 



place has quick response in the restless changing 
movements of camps, the swift coming and going, 
the pomp of parades, the hot fierce combat, the 
mingling of anxiety and animation, which make 
every vocation tasteless and colorless after one 
has been a soldier. She would have said, "I will 
be celebrated or die for she was dauntless and 
ruthless, ready to go to death herself, and deal 
it to others, without remorse. She was endowed 
with what our French cousins call the genius 
for command ; but being woman, there was no 
need of the rich inheritance, no outlet for it ; she 
might only intrigue. 

One day she fled to Italy, and after y ears of 
reckless living, thence to Greece. The House 
of Lords easily granted divorce to her husband, 
and the children remained with him. It was 
given out that the fair lady's mind was as wan- 
dering as her feet, that she was partially, if not 
wholly insane. By the terms of the divorce, a 
large income was allotted her, and she set up the 
standard of wit and beauty, and to it flocked 
genius and valor. A woman so calculating 
would not dissolve her pearl of life and toss it 
off at one delicious, maddening draught. She 
sipped it slowly, with deliberation, not to reach 
the dregs at the bottom of the cup. What 
thoughts ^yent through Lady Ellen's mind only 
the recording angel can tell. If there was 
remorse for abandonment of her husband and 
desertion of her innocent children, for her law- 
less life, it did not appear in the Priestess of the 



One Woman: A True Romance, 319 

Beautiful, dwelling in the famous city of As- 
pasia. 

She married again — a nobleman in the service 
of the King. This was in the days of Otho. 
The Queen was displeased, and censured him 
without avail, for he was bewitched ; and finally, 
her Majesty gave him notice to quit her service, 
or that English woman he named his wife. His 
place in the King's retinue was for life, that of 
husband of Lady Ellen might not be. To give 
up her wealth with such a sum of loveliness 
was hard indeed, but that was the alternative. 
He hesitated, tried to conciliate and compromise, 
but there were no terms to be made. The Count 
must go. And he did go, and left the lady fet- 
terless once more. 

Among the versatile accomplishments of this 
singular creature, unique in my knowledge of 
women, was the gift of tongues. Travelers from 
all the Mediterranean countries meet in Athens, 
and in its streets are heard many languages. 

She was fond of Oriental life ; and, familiar with 
the career of Lady Hester Stanhope, and Lady 
Mary Montague, of whom much was then writ- 
ten and said by travelers from the East, she 
seemed fired with the idea of emulating their 
example. She would be queen again in another 
empire, a Zenobia, a ruler in the desert, and her 
willing subjects should be the untamed and un- 
tamable Bedouins ; among the tribes who, from 
the remote times of Job and Sesostris, have been 
a nation of outlaws and rebels, whom Cyrus, 
Pompey, and Trajan could not subdue, and 



320 



Along the Bosfihorus. 



whom the weeping Alexander might have 
found in a peninsula yet to conquer. To fit her- 
self for fresh adventure and sway this imaginary 
scepter, Lady Ellen studied Arabic. 

Determined to rival Chatham's eccentric grand- 
daughter, she sailed away from Greece to see 
what the gorgeous East is made of. She had 
entered the violet-crowned city without affec- 
tions, she probably waved adieu without regrets. 
Her ample income gave means of gratifying a 
taste exquisite as it was luxurious ; servants, 
carriages, furniture, plate, linen, a French maid, 
the companion of her changeful moods, even her 
little lap-dog went with her. There are old cit- 
izens of Bey rut who remember the stir among 
an idle populace when the great English lady 
landed at the seaport and, uncrowned yet a queen, 
set out for the shadowy realm where she should 
rule by divine right, " La reine aux yeux bleus. n 
That city is to Damascus what Tyre was to it in 
the times of Ezekiel, and there the tourist has 
hi3 first taste of the true Orient, for there the 
palm-orchards grow. When the old Greek and 
Roman colonists first saw this lovely tree they 
named the country Plicenec'a, " The Land of the 
Palm and in like feeling, Vespasian, when he 
conquered Jerusalem, struck a coin representing 
a woman weeping, sitting under a palm tree, with 
the inscription, "Judsea capta." 

You have not felt the Orient till the leaf of 
the date-palm fans your forehead. There is no 
more delightful drive in the world than the 
eleven hours in a French dili^ence } which runs 



One Woman: A True Romance. 321 



daily between Beyrut and Damascus. The road 
was made by a French company, and is as good 
as any in France or Switzerland. The coacli is the 
ancient pattern with postilion and guard, the 
whip constantly cracked over three mules, har- 
nessed abreast, to do the pulling, behind three 
horses who furnish the elan and the dash. The 
gradents are long and steep, crossing the two 
chains of the Lebanon, but the plains of Coelo- 
Syria are smooth as water. The stages are 
eight miles each, and fresh relays are prompt and 
ready. 

When this road, through scenes of matchless 
beauty and undying historic interest, was com- 
plete, it was thought there would be an end of 
transportation by camel. A mistake ; the varied 
product of the interior still comes to the coast by 
caravan, and European goods are carried back by 
the same transport. Whirling along very much 
at our ease in the comfortable diligence, we under- 
stand in what state Lady Ellen went forth to see 
and conquer. The camels go in strings of six, 
each led by a donkey, who gives a sharp hitch to 
the rope when his subordinates sway out of line. 
On these ungainly brutes the brown bales 
and big boxes are girded, and so she sent her 
French furniture and English comforts across to 
Damascus. She did not perch on a bale, or rest 
on the airy height of a curtained howdah, made 
a place of soft ease with cushions and pillows, 
rugs and awning. She rode a prancing, milk- 
white Arabian of the Khnmsa. The Arabs 
name it a moon-colored horse, and breezes from 
%l 



3^2 



Along the Bosphorus. 



the snowy summits of the Lebanon must have lent 
a fresher glow to her cheek. The gardens, en- 
closed in cactus hedges, scented the summer air; 
and the olive, the cane, the mulberry, pomegran- 
ate, and the vine gave out fclieir perfume, each 
after its kind, for this Frankish princess from a 
remote barbarian isle. The natives watched in 
admiring wonder as she passed, and she gazed on 
the new and delightful landscape with eyes of 
untroubled azure. 

Soon as vou set foot on Syrian soil your Bible 
readings, forgotten or overlaid, so as to be 
crowded out of memory, come back again with 
the same force they held in childhood. You see 
Abigail, wife of Nabal, astride a white mule 
driving other mules ; those are the bells of 
Eleazar's camels, tinkling by the fountains at 
evening. Blind Bartimeus begs by the wayside, 
and green and fresh are the gourds of swift 
growth, such as shaded the Prophet of Nineveh, 
and solitary lodges in the gardens of cucumbers. 
From tombs and dens in naked rocks rush weird 
shapes like fabled ghouls, or searchers of graves, 
hideous with knotted hair and cancerous faces. 
They cry for help, holding up hands with fingers 
rotted away and skin-like scales of fishes. Fling 
a coin before they get nearer, for they are lepers. 
These sights the fair lady saw, and profuse in 
in charities, doubtless she showered on the plague- 
smitten the small white coin called asper, 

A gaunt figure, with sunburnt hair, wearing 
raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle 
about his loins, might pose for Raphael's picture 



One Woman: A True Romance. 323 



of one crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make Ins paths straight." 
Yonder, among the mountain intervals, Joseph, 
in every-day suit of sheep-skin, feeds his flocks 
with his brethren; his eoat of many colors you 
may see in the bazar. The low-browed, sullen- 
faced Ishmaelites yet travel from Gilead, with 
camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, 
going to carry it down to Egypt. J udging by 
appearance, these remote descendants of the an- 
cient slaveholders would buy Joseph if they 
dared, and his brethren would sell him cheap. 

Well has it been written, "The hills of Judea 
are a fifth gospel." Lady Ellen's guide was not 
an agent of Cook, but even as they who lead 
Pashas. He was mounted on a Meccan drome- 
dary, with splendid trappings, a saddle with bur- 
nished metal peaks before and behind, covered 
with a huge robe of fur-dyed crimson, and 
girthed over with voluminous saddle-bags, whose 
flowing tassels hung almost to the ground. They 
were of gorgeous color and diverse ; stiff with 
silk needlework embroidery, such as ladies from 
far countries pay twenty prices for, and make 
into eider-down cushions for their boudoirs. 
These things we see just as they were thousands 
of years ago, when tins fine French road was un- 
dreamed of. To the Oriental mind a good road 
is a perilous experiment and mighty temptation. 
" Why smooth the rocks from Jaffa to Jerusa- 
lem," asks the courteous Governor, " that the 
Russians may bring their siege guns to bear on 
Mount Zion ? " 



324 



Along the Bosphorm. 



II. 

Lady Ellex was not disposed to isolation 
from her kind, like Lady Hester Stanhope, nor 
was she severe as that priestess, who, in the ful- 
ness of her self-won power in the Lebanon, anni- 
hilated a village for disobedience, and burnt a 
mountain chalet, with all its inhabitants, for the 
murder of a traveler. With her faithful friends 
Miladi tasted the matchless vino d'oro 1 the golden 
wine of the Lebanon, which make's of com- 
mon glass a cup of amber; and through a field- 
glass she discerned, against the intense blue 
columns pure as sculptured snow, which mark 
the site of Baalbec, the supposed Baal-gad of 
the Old Testament. There they stand, like 
monarchs in exile, despoiled, but not fallen ; 
mournful and majestic as the imperial marbles 
of the Acropolis. 

She saw, my heroine, the same varied land- 
scape we see to-day. She recalled the renowned 
warriors who have fought their way through 
these defiles, perhaps not Saul and Gideon, but 
Tanered, Saladin, the romances of the Lion- 
Heart, and tales of the kings of Persia, Egypt 
and Rome. Every step of her steed had been 
trodden by the feet of a chief, a prophet, a hero ; 
has rung with the clash of steel and glistened 
with the curving scimetar, in whose shadow 
Paradise is prefigured for the Faithful. The 
tradition runs that the lone city of the wilder- 
ness was built by Djinns, for the purpose of hid- 



One Woman: A True Romance, 32 j 

ing in subterranean caverns immense treasure, 
which still lies buried there. Those wondrous 
columns are haunts for blue lizards, which the 
Turks kill because, they say, by bending its 
head it mimics them at prayers ; and near them 
Moore's Peri caught the precious tear of the 
repentant sinner, which bought her admission 
into Heaven's gate. 

At nightfall, Miladi, with her prince-like 
retinue, encamped by the wayside near a fount- 
ain, and slept, nestled in downy silken cushions. 
Perhaps for supper she ate a cake of sesame, to 
remind her of Ali Baba, and had a glass of 
sherbet made of violets and sugar. From the 
draperied doorway of her shawl-lined tent, she 
could watch the western sky flush with a red 
like the redness of roses, and almost scent its 
fragrance. She could understand the rhapsodies 
of the native dwellers in tents ; their chanting 
of the golden prime of Haroun Al Easchid ; 
their rhyming to all sorts of tender remem- 
brances, and chiming to the stars of Heaven, and 
to the sun, grandest of sheiks, lord of the blue 
desert of air. Dearest to the Desert wanderers 
is a familiar idyl, sung in slow, soft strains, 
about a Fountain of Youth, hid in some dim 
region untrodden save by the angels. It lies 
away in the far East. History, poetry, fable, 
hold here eternal and undisputed sway, and Lady 
Ellen was not insensible to their sweet influences. 
What she saw was unfamiliar, except the birds ; 
for of the three hundred and twenty-two varieties 
of Palestine, one hundred and seventy are 



326 



Along the Bosphorus, 



English. The timid lark starts out from her 
nest on the ground, and goes singing up to 
Heaven's gate, circling the sky with waves of 
melody. The hedge-sparrow twitters tamely 
about to pick up scattered grain, reminder of the 
care of the All-Seeing One. Swallows skim the 
sky at twilight, and gentle are the notes of coo- 
ing doves and tame pigeons on the roofs, as they 
twine their silver beaks, repeating the old, old 
story, new every morning and fresh every even- 
ing. The titmouse flits unresting as the birds 
of the Bosphorus, which never alight, les dmes 
damnee, and the carrier-bird scatters cinnamon- 
seed into fresh fields. Sweeter than these is the 
nightingale in the pomegranate -tree, wooing, 
with ravishing note, the rosebud and the rose to 
rend their thin veils and lay the soul of their 
beauty and love all bare. Sing the poets, You 
may place a hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs 
before the nightingale, yet he wishes not in his 
constant heart for more than the sweet breath of 
his beloved rose. 

In her guarded tent the Lady of the wander- 
ing heart, perhaps, had fleeting dreams of cool, 
gray English skies, green lawns, and parks, and 
meadows dotted with sheep ; but she w r as not 
beset with morbid fancies, though the vesper- 
song of the Syrian bulbul is the saddest, tender - 
est sound ear ever heard. Somehow it always 
reminded of young mothers hushing their sick 
.babies to sleep; plaintive and tired the lullaby, 
while the rest of the world is putting on even- 
ing beauty and mirth. 



One Woman: A True Romance. 3 2 7 

Thirty years ago the country was more unsafe 
than now, and even to-day, the fellaheen, except 
close to towns, must sow and plow with muskets 
at their backs. Along stupendous cliffs of 
Hermon and Lebanon are fissures offering in 
their recesses shelter for banditti, and organized 
raids of a thousand men sally out in foraj^s, al- 
most to the gates of Damascus. Miladi must 
not trust to the prestige of a name, nor rely on 
the charm of her presence to quell a mob; she 
must travel with a strong escort, though her 
fame had preceded her, and from the villages 
crowds flocked to see her go by on her way to 
the City of Delight. 

Syrian villages are much alike, low, mud 
houses, bare of ornament, a plaster floor, a flat 
roof, laid with lime and sand, where the family 
may sleep, where maize is spread to dry, and 
pigeons flock and feed. Ar. outer stair leads to 
this useful roof ; the doorway is a great arch 
covered with a hanging mat, answering to the 
Arab tent, just as the fathers of these people in 
the wilderness closed the Tabernacle entrance 
with a veil. At sunset, as of yore, men and 
women gather about the wells and gossip. None 
but the rich can afford to sink a shaft through 
solid limestone a hundred and fifty feet, and once 
made, the spring is a precious heritage, belong- 
ing forever to one family and his tribe ; no law 
or combination can wrest it from him • and it is 
the saying when Bedawin are hard pressed : 
" We can stop the wells. Water is life ; how, 
then, can the horsemen follow ? " 



328 Alo7ig the Bosphorus. 

The villages are picturesque in the distance ; 
at near view filthy and poverty-stricken past 
telling. In the narrow streets, roofed to keep 
off the sun, among famished beasts, squat worn- 
out women, with diseased children, who are 
taught before they can speak, to put out hands 
for alms to the traveler. Beggars, in every 
stage of sickness and deformity, miserable dogs 
quarreling over dry bones, the blind, the lame, 
the mixed multitude which followed the Master, 
beseeching that they might touch if it were but 
the border of his garment ; and as many as 
touched Him were made whole. As you ad- 
vance into Holy Land, at every turn is new and 
startling evidence of the truth of sacred history, 
and forgotten texts start into remembrance with 
vivid meaning. In the midst of this squalor 
and misery a shining minaret points with slen- 
der finger to the one God ; a square of green 
turf is nicely kept about it ; and a prayer stone 
shows the direction of the Kaaba, the center of 
the world to the Faithful. A few plane trees — 
which are our sycamore — with dangling balls, 
fringed the place of prayer and the fountains. 
Without this oasis are heated rock and scorch- 
ing sand, bare except for a shrub, like sage 
bush — the food of the camel. 

Circling waves of mountains bound the hori- 
zon. One pleasant spot in these forlorn towns is 
the burial place ; not sequestered and forgotten, 
but a sort of park, where Moslems, old and 
young, hesitate not to stray ; where children 
play hide-and-seek, black goats browse, and the 



One Woman: A True Romance, 

dead seem in a sort of fearless companionship 
with the living. Once a week, on Friday, the 
Mohammedan Sunday, ladies picnic among the 
tombs, carrying white umbrellas, lined with 
green (a sign of rank), and lay on the graves an 
herb called rihan, which is our sweet basil. In 
dreamy quietude they sit beside the turbaned 
headstones, motionless almost as the still sleepers 
below. Many other sights, worth traveling far 
to see, our traveler, the Lady Ellen, beheld on 
her triumphal march toward the city of delight. 

I am not here to prose, guide-book in hand, 
on the Pearl of the Orient, the most ancient city 
on this planet, which has survived every Empire 
since the Flood, and under every change of 
dynasty — Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, Eoman, 
Saracen — has kept its loveliness and prosperity. 
For more than four thousand years it has risen 
from its green sea of verdure in bright buildings, 
airy, ethereal, as some deceitful mirage which 
looms up to the vision of the traveler, maddened 
with thirst in waterless wastes. The vale in 
which Damascus lies was in the forgotten cen- 
turies named Beit Eden^ " the Abode of the 
Blest," where are fountains enough to slake the 
thirst of ten armies. Every one knows the 
story of Mohammed's refusing to enter its walls, 
saying it was "too delicious." The enjoyment 
of that Paradise would make him forget the 
Eternal One, on the shores of the quadrangular 
lake where stand one thousand goblets made of 
stars, out of which spirits predestined to felicity 
drink of the crystal wave. The spot where the 



330 Along the Bosphorus. 



Prophet resisted the fascinations of the tempter 
is consecrated by a mosque resplendent with 
green tiles. After the pitiless, blinding glare of 
white rock and arid gray sand, you feel the un- 
speakable beauty of this luxuriant valley — really 
an oasis — and the force of the Arab saying, 
" The mere sight of Damascus is food for vision, 
and pure water to the parched throat." It lies 
]ike some enchanted city of rounded domes, 
towers, and minarets, with shining crescents 
close below the speckless sapphire. Here are 
the shady rose-gardens where the shrubs are 
trees, and all of the kind we call damask, load- 
ing the air with wholesome perfume ; here are 
the rushing waters Barrada (the Abana of Xaa- 
man's time), and the Thege (the Pharpar), 
better than all the waters of Israel. Yonder is 
dewy Hermon, and this wall of amethyst and 
beryl, edged with pearl, is snowy Anti-Libanus. 

But why try to describe the indescribable ? One 
glance is to thrill the coldest nature, and bring 
tears to your eyes with the mere sense of the 
beautiful, 

Within the decayed and decaying walls of the 
city, not far from the silver waters of the Bar- 
rada, is a private place, hidden from passers-by 
with a high stone Avail. It allows a view of the 
streets from overhanging balconies, projecting 
above the dead, blank masonry, which is pierced 
with one barred gate. About it is a garden 
freshed with greenery, much water and 
many fountains ; a grateful shelter from sun- 
glare and street-dust. In their season there 



One Woman: A True Romance, 331 

bloom the apricot and oleander, carnation, tulip 
and lily, poppy and lavender, the never-failing 
sweet basil " for remembrance," to go with, the 
dead to their graves, and the rose, always the 
rose. 

Lady Ellen bought this palace. For dwellers 
in houses of the East the first ideas of living are 
plenty of light and space. Many apartments 
with multiplied windows, suites of rooms in 
ample vistas, or a great hall surrounded by bed- 
rooms or boudoirs, and never without a central 
court open to heaven. Our lady had wide scope 
for elegant tastes. Some rooms she furnished in 
French style. The grand salon of reception was 
carpeted with costly fabric from Persian looms, 
the hangings of damask silk shot with gold. Ir 
the boudoir, her special retreat, she gathered 
(what contradiction) home treasures, and on 
strange altars set up the household gods of her 
youth. 

There were miniatures of her children, dead 
years before this apartment became a show place ; 
the portrait of her father, whose crest she had 
dragged to the dust, painted in his knightly 
uniform, looking with unseeing eyes on his 
daughter's disobedience. There, too, was a por- 
trait of herself, framed as became her imperious 
beauty, in velvet and gold, a bride among the 
foremost at the proudest court in the Christian 
world. The artist was no common painter, he 
caught the very turn of the regal head crowned 
with braids of abundant hair, the delicate aristo- 
cratic features, the magic of the witching eyes, 



33 2 Along the Bosfihorus. 



blue as the blue of deep sea water — lodestone 
eyes, from which, none might turn away. On a 
table of fragrant woods from India, lay superb 
portfolios filled with drawings of Lady Ellen's 
own work—home scenes of England, Swiss land- 
scapes and original designs — and a piano with 
the hushed music of buried years. I did not 
see these rooms, but have the account from one 
who did. 

The English Colony then numbered perhaps 
twenty souls. The Britons flocked round the 
new-comer and were fascinated. The Pashalic 
of Damascus is the most important of the Otto- 
man Empire, and Orientals felt the charm of the 
enchantress, for her languages gave the broadest 
range of acquaintance, and she had a genius for 
friendships. Officials of rank crowded the salon, 
a throne room where she spoke, in one evening, 
French, Italian, Slav, German, Spanish, Arabic, 
Turkish, Greek, readily as her native tongue. 

She had a liking for country as well as city 
life, and looked after her poultry, stables, flowers, 
planned improvements in buildings, and excelled 
in music and sculpture as well. Said one of her 
country-women, resident at Damascus, She was 
always the perfect lady in sentiment, voice, 
manners, speech ; for those who enjoyed her con- 
fidence it was a treat to pass hours in her society. 
Idolizing friends never dropped from their alle- 
giance to her, some subtle quality in her compo- 
sition enforced remembrance ; she captivated 
women thoroughly, as men, and they worshiped 
with unswerving devotion- A caprice of this 



One Woman: A True Romance, 333 

wayward woman was to attend service in our 
missionary cliapel ; she asked with apparent sin- 
cerity and simplicity to be allowed the privilege, 
knowing well (the artful siren !) the missionaries 
would be only too glad of her presence and in- 
fluence. 

Meanwhile it was announced in London that 
Lady Ellen was dead ; and in her boudoir, odor- 
ous with rose-oil, cedar, and musk, she had the 
unusual pleasure of reading her own obituary, 
and smiling over the charitable mention given 
by common impulse of humanity to the defense- 
less dead. 

What with myriad lights streaming from lat- 
ticed windows of rooms heavy with languid nar- 
cotics, lute and zither resounding through hall 
and bower, gay voices in court and balcony, the 
Palace, once the harem of a dismal Pacha, became 
a notable edifice. But the sound of revelry 
under the myrtle blooms was within the limits 
of becoming mirth, noise and uproar were for- 
eign to the grande dame, flexile and fair, accus- 
tomed to the atmosphere of courts, now queen- 
ing it to her heart's content. It is said her low 
laugh was cheering as the matin-hymn of the 
meadow lark, winsome of the wooing of the 
cushat in her nest. Still it was a decided change 
of occupancy from the beauties whose henna- 
stained fingers drew close their envious veils 
while they sat in the gardens, ever silent, ever 
sad, whose gayety was at prayer time, to answer 
the blind muezzins' cry^ in a chorus called Zira- 
leet) whose utmost gtretch of freedom was a 



334 Along the Bosphorus. 



slow walk or drive under the eye of the black 
guardsman. The story went abroad that in the 
Palace of the Pacha dwelt a foreign princess, 
with eyes like stars in the middle watch ; allur- 
ing as a Peri, the link between men and angels. 
She wore a saffron shawl, and was wise as Bal- 
kis, Queen of Arabia, who went from the south 
to hear the wisdom and admire the glory of Sol- 
omon. The witch-woman's veins ran wine, she 
knew how to enchant men with cunning sorcer- 
ies, and could game away the sun before it rises. 

HI. 

Cairo has been named the heart of the Orient, 
but since the changes there by Isamail Pacha, 
and the advent of the locomotive, Damascus is 
the best place for the coloring of Haroun Al 
Easchid. The Orientals have a saying, " Who 
commands iron will soon command gold." 
The blades of matchless temper, worth a king's 
ransom, have vanished from her markets; but 
t wo of ancient work, wrought to such perfection 
they bend like thin whalebone, remain for the 
wonderment of the stranger. 

The wealth of Damascus is immense, and there 
are hundreds of khans for merchandise, built 
round a large covered court, where kneeling and 
groaning camels deposit their loads. Two gal- 
leries run round this space into which store- 
rooms, hardly larger than presses, open. The 
merchants who sit cross-legged in front of the 
meager shops, and smoke and wait for customers, 
are dignified and reverend as patriarchs. "Pa- 



One Woman: A True Romance. 335 

tience," they say ; " by patience the mulberry 
leaf becomes satin." One might suppose in the 
small stock of goods there is hardly enough 
profit to make both ends meet, even with Orien- 
tal frugality. Yet those silent, grave shopmen, 
seemingly so poor, are worth their millions, and 
could you visit them you would see palaces 
which make real the visions of Aladdin. 

The houses of the city are alike ; plastered 
with yellow stucco, a dead wall to the street, 
giving a dreary and forbidding aspect. Enter 
the carven doorway into the court with tessel- 
lated pavement, a mosaic of bright marbles, 
where fountains laugh and sing to overhanging 
vines and blossoms, and the peculiar figs which 
made the Eoman epicure rejoice that ever he was 
born. One such house (not Lady Ellen's, for 
there were bounds to her extravagance,) was 
built of Italian marble, brought from the coast 
on mules. It had balconies despoiled from Sar- 
acenic carvings of Egypt, and was hung with 
shawls of Hindostan. But this does not inter- 
est the stranger like the bazars, shadowy, arched, 
and picturesque. When you become "used to 
dim lights and the gay confusion of colors, dis- 
cordant voices of men and animals, you will be 
delighted with them. 

As the great English Lady, with armed at- 
tendant, approached, the turbaned Moslems 
would start to their feet, and show her the small 
cupboards and stalls ; in dirty alleys were 
precious magazines. One Persian, low salaam- 
ing at her lustrous glance, murmured under his 



336 



Along the Bosphorus, 



beard, "But for the eyes of sapphire, an Houri 
escaped from Paradise ; " and when she passed he 
shaded his eves as from the glinting of the sun. 
She did not think it flattery; she was well-used 
to open admiration of the crowd, and accepted it 
as she accepted the radiant image in her mirror, 
of which none might say aught, except that it 
was beautiful. Not in a week, or a month can you 
explore the recesses where are gathered quaint 
rarities, new and old, exquisitely finished, daz- 
zling the sight. Uninviting and evil-smelling 
though they be, here are heaped the spoils of 
the East. Amber from the Baltic Sea, coral 
from the Caspian, shell and gold work from 
Cairo, filagree carvings in ivory and jade from 
China, coffee cups of native work crusted with 
precious gems, chains and suits of armor inlaid 
with jewels. And there are spices from Arabia 
Felix, ointments from Moab, and alabaster boxes 
from the country of its name. And such, amulets 
of opal, iridescent and glimmering, talismans of 
moonstone, and turquoises of the mines of the 
Pharaohs, warranted to keep oft" the evil eye; 
wonderful caskets hinting of inestimable treasure, 
and ivory chests, delicate as frost work. 

In the dark, crowded chambers of the Turk, 
are rugs soft as down, changeable like the 
feathers of tropic birds, with tints toned com- 
pletely as the hues of the rainbow : scarfs stained 
with sea-purple, barred and brocaded with gold ; 
yari-colored stuffs which always harmonize. No 
magenta-reds and sunflower-yellows in the Da- 
mascus bazars. They would strike the eye as 
sharp discords pain the ear attuned to music. 



One Woman: A True Romance. 337 

There is the Koran-stand, where only the holy 
volume may lie, the uncreated, the Eternal 
Word, subsisting on the essence of Deity, and 
inscribed with a pencil of Light on the table of 
His everlasting decrees. The consecrated stands 
are shaped like the letter X ) and are made of 
cedar and mother-of-pearl. Hanging overhead, 
in dust and gloom, are ostrich eggs, quaintly 
ornamented, and ringed with hoops of gold and 
gems, to be suspended in sacred places — symbols 
of the resurrection. There are skins of the 
spotted leopard, of the black-maned lion from 
reedy coverts along the banks of the Euphrates, 
and superb tiger-robes from the Ganges, to be 
thrown on divans or consecrated as prayer- 
carpets. 

How can I tell of the Indian work of screens 
and cabinets ; fans, and of ancient arms, the 
mere mention of which stirs the ghosts of dead 
and gone crusaders and Paladins ? Here are won- 
derful peacocks with enameled breasts, and jewels 
for the argus-eyes of the sweeping tail ; coffee - 
services of brass and silver, set with diamonds, 
in trays arabesque, old Moorish work; nargilehs 
with long ropes for smoking through water, am- 
ber mouthed chibouks, every conceivable shape 
of pipe ; meerschaum and ambergris, rose-oil and 
musk, shawls, silks, table-covers, fabrics of soft 
wool, furs, and leather work pliant as silk. 
The experienced and enthusiastic shopper goes 
mad with delight in Damascus. And after the 
slow day's bargaining, comes the pure, sensuous 
enjoyment of cooling breeze from snowy mount- 
22 



33« 



Along the Bosfihorus. 



am tops, the pomp of sunset, the glow of starry 
skies, and the chirp of insect life in restful uni- 
son. All is poetry, picture, romance, appeals to 
memory and imagination such as are never 
found in the raw newness of western cities with- 
out a history. 

Mauy days the Lady of whom I write, spent 
pleasantly in the magnificent fatiguing bazars. 
She bought much and she bought well. The 
shopmen knew her, and the pedlars who prey on 
the stranger and the pilgrim respected the great 
lady, who could address them in their own 
tongue, and offered them fair price and no more 
for their wares. 

Her fame went abroad in the regions round 
about, and it spread through the Hill country 
that there was a foreign woman, a Giaour in the 
City of Delight, beautiful as the father of Mo- 
hammed, who was so beautiful that the night he 
was married two hundred virgins died of jeal- 
ousy and despair. 

The vari-colored shows of Damascus had a 
strong hold on Lady Ellen, and they amused her 
for a time, but the trail of the serpent is over 
them all, and she tired of the splendor and the 
squalor of street and khan. Her palace was 
done ; filled and finished, wanting nothing but 
the roc's egg under the central dome. The 
placid indolence of the place was too monoto- 
nous for the unquiet soul of the Queen of the 
Blue Eyes. 

Her chief amusement, not very amusing, was 
the Bazar of the farthest East, after the prayer 



X 



One Woman: A True Romance. 339 

Has-arr at three P. M., when the galleries are 
the theatre of auction sales, and shifting shapes 
and colors are most vivid and complex. In one 
of these idle saunterings she espied in a draped 
archway, a man unlike Turk or Persian, stand- 
ing behind a glass box of trinkets. He was 
short, swart, with oblique eyes, and curly hair 
fringing a black turban. When she approached 
his magazine of merchandise the seller bowed to 
her with sullen and gloomy indifference. Un- 
used to such scant courtesy Lady Ellen, some- 
what piqued, advanced to the stranger and asked 
indifferently: " What have you that is new to 
me?" She addressed him in Arabic, and the 
man replied in the same language, first saluting 
her with deep salaam : — 

" I have such jewels as have never been seen 
in Damascus. Will the Princess honor the 
poorest of her slaves by looking at them ? " 

"Yes. But looking does not always mean 
buying with me." 

" Certainly not. Still it will please the Prin- 
cess to see the gems, so far from their happy 
home on the White Nile," 

Fumbling the ample folds of his robe, the man 
drew from his bosom a package covered with 
black woolen cloth. "This," he said, explana- 
torily, with a forbidding and sinister smile, " is 
their cloak, manufactured in Djerid, the country 
of golden dates and silky sheep." 

He laid the black cloth in the bottom of a 
deep, narrow box, and slid down his flowing 
sleeve a coiled belt of spun gold, with bright 



34° 



Along the Bosfthorus. 



clasps on top. Then lie shaded it with his dark 
burnous, and said : " Will the Princess look 
down the tube, and tell what the jewels are 
like." 

She bent over the black box, and, with sud- 
den, rousing interest, exclaimed : " Like two 
flaming coals of fire at the bottom of a well. 
They are the famous twin topazes of Ethiopia." 

"A good guess for a stranger," said the man, 
his dark face brightening, "but, pardon, they 
are not topazes." 

" Ah! carbuncles, then," said the Lady, gaily, 
now fairly awake to the strangeness of the fanci- 
ful ornament. 

4 -'No," said the trader, artfully shaking the 
tube to give best effects. " Those glancing 
lights, reflets the French call them, are not the 
property of carbuncles. The Princess is a con- 
noisseur, but she must guess again." 

" Mohammed was a merchant and commended 
commerce to his disciples ; you have profited by 
his teaching." 

" Pardon again, oh, Princess ; I am not among 
the followers of the camel-driver of Mecca. I 
come from the most ancient of Christians, the 
Copts of the first Cataract of the Nile. I swear 
not by the Prophet ; I swear by the Lion of St. 
Mark, these clasps are older than the seal-ring 
of Eameses." 

" I wall examine them a moment to pass the 
time," said Lady Ellen, with a charming anima- 
tion. 

The merchant drew the belt out of its hiding- 



One Woman: A True Romance. 341 

place and laid a band of sunlight — the very ces- 
tus of Cytherea — on the delicate wrist extended 
to receive the coil. 

" Pliant gold," she said, " that is modern 
work." 

"It is," the merchant reluctantly admitted, 
" but the clasps, that ancient setting, is from the 
mines of the Pharaohs. The jewels have a 
history." 

" The design is unique ; more curious than 
beautiful," said the buyer, examining the jewel- 
er's work ; " but you have not told me the name 
of the stones." 

" They are rubies of the Eedeemer." 

" Unknown to me. What a singular name I " 

"And so is the quality, oh, Princess. These 
are glistening blood-drops, rimmed in black 
onyx, reminders of Calvary and the Holy City 
of David." He went on pleadingly : " You like 
them because they are so old. They are older 
than this world, and potent as Solomon's signet." 

" You will persuade me this is the belt of 
Orion, dropped from the clouds. A talisman, too 
valuable for e very-day mortals," said Lady Ellen, 
lifting her even brows. , 

" The princess has clear vision. They are 
magical amulets of Egypt." 

"Suppose I buy one jewel, what will it pro- 
tect me from? " 

" From the curse Nazar, or evil-eye, mentioned 
in the Koran, and believed in by Moslems and 
many who are not Mussulmans. The fire in the 
eye." 



342 Along the Bosfikorus. 



" How did you come by a thing so precious as 
these clasps studded with rubies/' she spoke 
imperiously. " Tell me the truth." 

"I will, oli, Princess. I love the truth," said 
the jeweler, mysteriously lowering his voice. 
" Should you not please to buy the burning belt, 
for that is its name, will you hold the legend I 
tell you with seal unbroken ? " He spoke 
reverentially, and feigned anxiety for her answer. 

" I shall never think of it again," was the 
careless rejoinder, for the man was growing too 
confidential. 

a Pardon. I am sure nothing will be done to 
mar the fortune or dull the luster of my costly 
jewels." 

" Certainly not. Proceed with your story." 

" Will the Princess be seated ? " He threw a 
coverlet of velvet, embroidered with gold, on a 
cushioned seat. 

"A moment only," said Lady Ellen, to humor 
his whim. " Be brief." 

"I will. It is a short story the Princess 
graciously deigns to hear. Last year I was in 
my reed-hut on the upper Nile, when a party of 
Englishmen came to dig among the tombs. The 
sheik of our village is jealous of the Northerns 
and has spies to follow them, listen to what they 
say, and secretly report on them. I was honored 
with his confidence, and because I understood 
their language he gave me a handsome sum to 
serve them and him at the same moment." 

" Do you mean tosay you understand English," 



One Woman: A True Romance. 343 

asked the Lady in her native tongue. "Now I 
am surprised." 

" The praise of a Frankish Princess is worth 
years of happy life to her servant. I am no 
scholar but can make myself understood," said 
the Copt in tolerable English , " but it is not easy 
for me, and if the Princess please, I will return 
to the language of the false Prophet. May his 
name be confounded ! " 

Lady Ellen nodded indifferently, and the Copt 
with hands crossed on his breast stood behind 
his glass box of wares and continued :< — 

" These Englishmen discovered the tomb of a 
king, they said, which had never been broken 
into or touched. They are full of precious things, 
a fortune to the finders, for my ancestors buried 
valuables with their dead so that when they rise 
again they may not be poor and miserable. They 
hired me to go with them, and promised to kill 
me if I told of this sealed tomb, in the rock. I 
worked for them faithfully, and went with them 
through dismal caverns in the heart of catacombs. 
We found two coffins lying side by side." 

"A king and his queen." 

" The same, Princess. Their painted por- 
traits were on the lid, and their history, which I 
read at a glance. We bursted them open, we 
raised the lid by the light of torches, and in the 
terrible heat, and there was nothing, nothing, not 
even a bone. Other Englishmen had been there 
before them ; for wherever wood will float, there 
is the Englishman." 

" What has that to do with these clasps ? " 



V 



344 Along the BosphoruL 



asked Lady Ellen, impatiently ; " I should like 
to know." 

"AH to do, Princess. The coffins liad been 
robbed hundreds of years ago. The torchlight 
is dim in the stone caves ; my sight is better than 
that of the bald-headed Englishmen, and as we 
turned to go back, (how they did curse ! ) I saw, 
like fiery eyes, these jewels flashing in the mum- 
my-dust and sand on the floor of the king's 
ch amber. They had been dropped when the 
tombs were first robbed. I set my foot softly on 
the king's girdle, and beg the English gentlemen 
to bear my torch ahead one moment, while I 
tighten my sandal. They obligingly do so. I 
slip the prize into my bosom. I hold these gems 
there. Ever since that day they have been worn 
under my burnous or my turban. Behold my 
story ! It is ended." 

The lady was gazing absently at the mount- 
ains, now putting on crowns of gold, and made 
no sign, except a balancing of the belt as though 
weighing it in her hand — an affectation which 
dashed the confidence of the Copt a little. He 
waited in disappointed silence, eyeing her eagerly. 
She appeared to have forgotten him. 

" What is the name of the star of war and of 
blood ? " he asked, when the pause became un- 
endurable to the hopeful vender of antiques. 

" Mars," said Lady Ellen, recalling her wander- 
ing attention, and wondering what the man would 
make out of that. " It is a red planet, and keeps 
the first watch of evening." She relapsed into the 
bored expression which made the Egyptian 



One Woman: A True Romance. 345 

desperate. His face flushed, he continued: "I 
am charmed to know the English name of the 
star of the heroes. Deign to hear your slave, 
Princess, and -believe, for I swear by the law 
given on Sinai — " 

"Do not fatigue yourself with oaths ; they do 
not impress me," said the listener, making a 
gesture of dissent. 

" Pardon, pardon, fair Princess ; I love the 
truth, and will tell it, as a Christian should. My 
treasure is not of this earth, and there is but one 
lady living worthy to wear it." 

The speaker drew a long breath as though 
about to make a plunge into deep water, and 
nervously twisted his fingers together, his voice 
thrilling with excitement : — 

" These blazing jewels come from the War 
Star. They fell away from it in the ages of the 
forgotten. Soon as I touched them, I knew thej^ 
were enchanted stones from the regions of upper 
air, under the silver ceiling to which Moslems 
say the stars are strung by strong chains. When 
one shoots from its place, flying flakes like 
sparkles of fire trail after it through the sky. 
Only once in ten thousand thousand years do 
they reach the earth, instead of burning out like 
lamps." 

The man had touched his climax ; there was 
nothing more to tell. His peculiar eyes gleamed 
with hope. 

"Suppose I buy one ruby, from what will it 
protect me ? " 

" The marvels of flame are useless apart and 



346 Along the Bosfihorus. 



alone, Princess ; but the gems in a circle make 
the wearer proof against magic and sorcery. 
They are stronger than the mystical sapphire 
engraved in letters of light with the Nameless 
Name, on the hand of Solomon the Wise. The 
silken girdle of the mummied king was dropping 
to pieces with age, then I had this belt from a 
holy dervise of Assouan. It is, as you see, 
modern ; but its metal makes the electric circle 
complete, and whoever wears it may command, 
enchain, and hold spell-bound Demon and Giant, 
Afreet, Dives, and Djinn." 

"Anything else ? " asked the lady, with satire, 
lost on the dull wits of the seller. 

" Yes, fair Princess, I repeat, the burning belt 
will keep off the evil-eve, the Nazar, named in 
the Koran, and plague, ship- wreck, nightmare, 
and fire." 

" What pr'ce do you ask for the pretty belt, 
which insures long and peaceful life? " 

He named a moderate sum, for he knew the 
Princess was familiar with Oriental prices; and 
she laughed as she snapped the strange lock, 
inscribed with miraculous signs and cabalistic 
devices. 

"It is mine," she said, "and now I am safe 
from the monsters." 

They were nearer than she knew. 

Perhaps a tinge of superstition had touched 
Lady Ellen's imagination by residence in the 
Orient, or maybe a mere caprice led the wayward 
woman to wear the mystic zone ever after it came 
into her possession. The girlish waist, set off by 



One Woman: A True Romance, 347 

tlie close clasp of glittering buckles, made a 
conspicuous ornament for one whose quiet cos- 
tumes were not often noticeable. Her condescen- 
sion made the Copt her bond-slave for life, but 
she waved him away wheu he approached with 
more wonderful gems and still stranger histories. 
She had all good things within the ring of starry 
gold, nothing remained to be wished for. 

IV. 

It is a law of psychological mathematics, 
that the immovable force of dullness will, in 
the end, overcome any varying and irregular 
force resisting it. In the third year of the 
undisputed reign of the Queen of Blue Eyes 
she began to feel the strength of opposing 
natures unlike her own. One morning she 
abruptly announced to her worshipers that she 
was tired of Damascus. (The word environment 
has not effected a lodgment in Asia.) She was 
sated, ennuye, bored with the insipid legend of 
the " Seven Sleepers" and forever recurring 
traditions of the " Father of the Faithful." She 
longed for a glimpse of Bagdad, ancient of days, 
the seat of the Vicars of the Prophet. Suppose 
there was a sandstorm or an attack by robbers ; 
it would give her something to think about. 
She had purchased what choice things, large and 
small, she cared for; she had lolled and dreamed 
in her fountained court long enough; had dashed 
over the hills and far away on the moon-colored 
horse — an apparition calculated to make the 



348 Along the Bosphorus* 



dull, irrational Turkish women start with 
horror. 

That peerless animal was a small, compact 
Arabian, with mild eyes and familiar, loving 
ways, like a house-dog. She could leap like a 
gazelle, with no fear of her groom, whom she 
used as a rubbing-post; was never intimidated 
by lifting up of sticks or hands; for she had 
never been struck, and did not know the mean- 
ing of such gesture. Arab mares are stanch 
friends and laborious slaves, and so fleet and 
steady that a chief of Circassia, mounted on one, 
galloping at full speed, has been known to shoot 
a crow on the wing with his rifle ; and they can 
travel two hundred miles under the saddle in 
three consecutive days. Ambling is the favorite 
gait in the East ; and for that reason Lady Ellen 
chose the long, low gallop, where the true 
Arabian, even on the roughest, rockiest hills, 
never makes a false step. She could not ride 
forever, and she tired of sunny days, which lazy 
Turks use for taking kief in their kiosks on the 
banks of the Barrada or Pharpar. She had 
enough of the venders of curios and Damas 
blades. They were impostors, and their arms 
were counterfeits, every one. 

She was tired of the ladies with the Para- 
dise eyes (ah, those eyes !) who own the cash- 
meres, and never wear them, but go about in 
balloon-like draperies and shuffling slippers; in 
their movement graceless as water-birds on land. 
She had climbed the walls of the old castle, 
which looms up in the pictorial city, and looked 



One Woman: A True Romance. 349 

back over tlie valley enclosed in bloom, and idly 
watched the silver flow of the rivers eastward 
to the great marshy lakes which lie twelve miles 
beyond the gates, and are there lost in the sand. 
She had haunted the ruinous mosques, a ming- 
ling of Gothic and Saracenic architecture, and 
pondered and mused over the fantastic, incon- 
gruous mixture of magnificence and misery, filth 
and luxury, which goes to make up the Oriental 
City. Yes, she was tired of Beit Eden; its 
languor and repose. It was tedious and hum- 
drum in spite of her troops of friends. She 
knew herself in a favorite stronghold of fanatics. 
The lover of facts (not }^ou nor I, my reader) 
will remember that, in 1861, over twenty-five 
thousand Christians were massacred in and 
about Hermon and Anti-Lebanon. They hate 
Jews and Christians; but there is no reason to 
believe the Moslems hated my Queen of the 
Blue Eyes. She knew their ways, good and 
bad, and gave much backsheesh. Why should 
they hate her ? 

Damascus still retains its elliptical form ; and 
its walls, pierced with seven gates, doubtless 
occupy their first foundations. It was once 
threaded from east to west by a street called 
Straight — a noble thoroughfare, a hundred feet 
in breadth, divided by Corinthian colonnades 
into three avenues, of which the central was 
used by footmen, the other two traversed by 
horsemen, chariots and beasts of burden. Thus 
were built Bozrah and Samaria, and thus 
Palmyra, as proved by its four long rows of 



35© Along the Bosphorus. 



columns, sixty feet high, beginning in a majestic, 
triumphal arch. Bound about Damascus are 
mountains sterile as Sinai, which glow at even- 
ing like the very splendor of the Eternal Throne. 
Lady Ellen surveyed them as the barrier of the 
desert which lies on the other side; a level of 
yellow sand, smooth as a floor, soft as a tufted 
carpet, where run lines representing roads, and 
creeping specks, like ants, which are men and 
animals. Deep in it, fiery leagues away, is 
Tad mar in the Wilderness, the city builded of 
Solomon, girdled by the desert, as other cities 
in pleasant isles are girdled with the sea. She 
would cross that mountain wall, and seek the 
c'ty named Palmyra by the all-conquering 
Roman. There, at least, she would have some 
sort of change from this triste valley, ruled by 
endless quietude. 

What if it was like a sweet dream to sit in 
the roses and hear the birds sing? to be awak- 
ened by the lark and lulled by falling waters? 
Enough of that sort of thing. Time to ring down 
the curtain on Damascus. Good-night to the 
Eye of the East. 

Across the graves of forty centuries she would 
march — Miladi, in search of novelty. The re- 
splendent, rose-strewn palace chambers w r ere too 
narrow, this kingdom too small, the wearisome 
Turks too stolid and staring. She would get out 
of their sight, and throw off the trammels of civ- 
ilization. She had worn those bonds lightly 
enough, to be sure; but the leopardess must be 
loosed again. Her English friends opened the 



One Woman: A True Romance. 351 

book of lamentations; they could not let her go ; 
she took their daylight with her. Yainly they 
pleaded danger. She answered : — 

"Did not Lady Hester Stanhope live, the only 
woman among thirty-seven serving men, in her 
convent palace? And did not Madame de la 
Tourelle live for years on the top of an exceed- 
ing high mountain, in peace and safety?" 

She would travel the road of old Phoenician 
adventurers, of mailed knights and crusaders, 
where many lances have been shivered, and manj^ 
a hero who used to prance in the tilt yard, in 
the sheen of bright eyes and bright armor, has 
bitten the dust. Why should she be cooped up 
in stone walls when the free desert was wooing 
her as the lion woos his bride? As well be 
locked in a harem at once. The ruins of Tad- 
mor, or Tudmur, as the Arabs call it, are not 
imposing, they urged; the low, mean, mud-built 
modern village is the home of plague and fever; 
of jackals, masterless dogs; a decrepit and dying 
place, hardly a camel to be seen in the streets; 
the Desert glows like a furnace ; and your only 
thought, after getting in, is how to get out. The 
towers are used as stables for miserable, mangy 
donkeys of the lowest tribes, who rob and strip 
the wayfarer. 

Lady Ellen was never listless ; so her friends 
tell me. She heard each argument with infinite 
and gracious gentleness, and smilingly did as she 
pleased. And it pleased the lady to set her fair 
face eastward ; to tempt fortune outside the 
Happy Valley. There is a true saying : " In the 



352 Along the Bosphorus. 



Desert no man meets a friend.' ' Take protection 
of the caravan, or have a strong guard, as our 
heroine did, departing in state with a party of 
Anazees, under Antar, an inferior sheik, a Bed- 
ouin. Tents, baggage, maid — every equipment 
for comfort went with her. 

The Desert, forbidding to our imagination, has 
its own charm, which it keeps for its lovers. 
There are secret waters in the sand if you choose 
to dig for them, and hidden pleasure found by 
search. You must, along with food and water, 
shelter and steed, take an atmosphere with you. 
Lady Ellen took hers. They say her glance was 
like a saber in the air the morning she started, in 
eager delight. Good-by to flashing streams of 
lucent waters. The liquid music will not stay 
her step, nor shady garden, nor balcony with 
striped awning, where friends crowd, with wav- 
ing hands and scarfs. Good-by to verdant leaf- 
age and tropic blossom, summer house of marble 
and gold, gilded kiosk, and cool pavilion. 
Hail to the Desert chief who escorts the incom- 
ing queen to the storied realm of Zenobia. 

Though your lips parch in the Desert, j^ou do 
not feel oppressed. The senses are sharpened 
acutely, and the constant presence of danger 
keeps one on the lookout, and at his highest 
spirit; the air is tonic as spiced wine. Evening 
mild is pleasant past telling, the bivouac deli- 
cious. Tents are pitched silently, rapidly ; car- 
pets are spread ; the grunting camels ungirded ; 
the supper eaten heartily. 

The stars flash out at a breath ; not slowly an 



One Woman: A True Romance, 353 

with us; and then is the witching time. While 
dim iEolian soundings haunt your ear, look 
toward the North Star, and sing the tender 
evening strain from the Koran : 

" Have we not given you the earth for a bed, 
And made you husband and wife, 
And given you sleep for rest, 
And made you a mantle of night? " 

When the lights are out, and all else is 
hushed, some Arab will tune his two-stringed 
guitar. His boundless tent is the infinite 
spangled arch which upholds the Throne of God. 
Mingling with ycir dreams are his soft chants of 
bubbling fountains, raving palms, leafy oases, 
white arms, and the ba^y breath of the Black- 
eyed (always the Black-eyed ! ) whose tresses 
are as midnight shades, whose form is like the 
tamarisk when the warm wind b^^s. Or he 
may chant the thousand and one verse& of the 
Persian Poet, Nizami's Lay of the Frantic Lover 
and the Night- black Beauty who died of love. 
Or he may drowsily thrum and sing of Borak, 
the milk-white steed, swifter than lightning, who 
bore Lord Mohammed beyond the Seventh 
Sphere. Up he flew, up the path of purple 
glass, to the light which hath not any name on 
earth. Up to the dim " Eegion of the Veils," 
where ten thousand thousand bars of flame, 
lambent with loveliness and mystery, shut all 
times off from eternity, and guard the Everlast- 
ing City of Precious Stones. 

With such fervid enthusiasm did Lady Ellen 
set out for the City of Palms that she declared 
23 



354 



Along the Bosphoras. 



she would love to push on to Aleppo and Bag 
dad, to Shiraz and Persepolis — last stronghold 
of the Magian — the hills of the fire-worshipers 
and the glorious region where the sun rises. 
Useless to oppose the whims of the spoilt beauty; 
to threaten her w r ith plagues, the Aleppo but- 
ton," the " Bagdad date-mark," the evil-eye. 
She clasped the burning jewels of her belt, and 
laughingly said she wore talisman and amulet, 
and could more easily cast a spell than submit to 
one. In pleasant Eastern fashion, friends, 
mounted on goodly steeds, escorted her half-a- 
day's march into the wilderness, and, after much 
salaaming and salutation and fine compliment, 
consigned her to the guidance and guardianship 
of a squad of Anazees, under Sheik Antar. 
That is not his name, you know; it is best not 
to tell names and tales together. 

At once, my reader pictures him an emir of 
emirs, a supreme, haughty leader, of dauntless 
bravery, who sways his tribe as one man, though 
his power is a splendid weakness ; for the order 
of succession to the first place is loose and pre- 
carious. But his desert brethren and followers 
worship him, and are ready to do and die with 
him and for him. His banner, displayed at the 
head of the column, deserves the honors of a 
kingly name. He (this ideal sheik) wears a tur- 
ban with tremendous diamonds, and lives in the 
saddle. His horse's neck is clothed with thunder ; 
the glory of his nostrils is terrible ; and he 
smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the 
captains and the shouting. The monarch of 



One Woman: A True Romance. 35$ 

the illimitable desert Las the eye of a falcon, 
the brow, of a conqueror, is wiry and agile, and 
his heart is filled with a sad unrest. Though 
his people keep the roads, they scorn to attack 
parties with women, and are actuated by 
high and generous impulse. He tosses a javelin, 
decorated with tufts and flying streamers, wears a 
murderous yatagan and cimeterof crescent shape, 
and is forever swearing by the law and the 
prophet and the soul of his grandfather. On the 
march he is foremost, a guiding light amid the 
shine of lances. In camp his is the central tent 
of striped scarlet and white, with mighty stand- 
ard of green, the color of the flag of the Prophet 
(he rests in glory ! ). His spear before the door, 
like Saul's, is a terror to evil-doers; and, when 
provoked to wrath, he is a lion come up from 
swellings of Jordan. 

Such is our ideal sheikh. I saw him in the 
area about the mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, 
and again escorting a party from the Holy City 
to Hebron. Many times have I seen the real 
sheikh, much more easily discovered. Espe- 
cially do I recall one who cheats travelers by 
selling counterfeit antiques and false coins in the 
shadow of the Pyramids ; a hungry-looking 
rascal, followed by a dozen or so beggars ; the 
pettiest of petty chiefs, the small head of the 
smallest of clans ; a robber by profession and 
practice, not of the Paul Clifford school, but a 
savage, skulking behind rocks and in gorges. 
And of such, in all probability, were the ancient 
" kings " who held Canaan in Joshua's time. 



356 



- 'Along the Bosfihorus. 



Dare 7 1 whisper to you, dearly beloved, that the 
vast majority of the unconquered Bedouins, 
when stripped of romance and glamour, clad only 
in their homespun rags, resemble, very nearly, 
those gentle wards of the Government, our own 
Digger Indians, and their sheikh is the sachem 
of the tribe ? 

Just here let me snatcn one moment to say, 
when you do find ^he be, t Oriental, the exqui- 
site grace of his bearing, the smooth, patient, 
courteous dignity of his manner, surpass the 
highest breeding of Christian courts. At the 
risk of rousing my reader's indignation I re- 
peat the remark of one long . esident in Persia : 
" The further east you go, the finer the manner. 
First among the sons of men for polish and ur- 
banity is the Arabian ; next him the Turk ; then 
comes the Italian; the i the Spaniard, French- 
man; then the cold, stiff Englishman and lastly 
the helter-skelter American; and I presume, 
California is worse than Chicago, though I have 
never been there." Eemember, this is not my 
assertion, nor dare I confess to endorsing it. 

As to the glittering arms a:.d blood-curdling 
prowess of the Desert kings they are things to 
be laughed at. A band of tourists can chase a 
thousand brigands, and z very small army can 
put ten thousand to fight. The wonderful 
mares sung in song a" i famous in story are the 
property of princes. Occasionally the average 
Bedouin owns a scraggy, famished beast, badly 
pounded with sticks, which we call a donkey. 



One Woman: A True Romance. 357 



V. 

Inhabitants of the Desert are easily recog- 
nizable by a network of wrinkles in the skin 
round their eyes, the result of half closing them 
to avoid the intense sunbeat. This was a pecul- 
iarity of the face of Sheik Antar, and, like 
like many of his nation, he had visible front 
teeth. At a distance, before the features are 
discernable, either a short upper lip, or some 
way of holding it, reveals the ivory-white in the 
dusky setting. I have not been able to learn 
any characteristic by which he was distinguished 
above his fellow Anazees, and the many descrip- 
tions which have come to me represent him as 
the ordinary Bedouin — swart, keen-eyed, straight- 
haired, somber. And now my story has two 
branches. I give both; and my precious reader 
may take his choice : — 

One is that Antar was ugly, dull and dirty — a 
poor outlaw, who, if found on the Lebanon by 
the Maronites, would be shot at sight, and his 
flesh be given to the fowls of the air, meat for 
the eagles if the jackals did not rob them. The 
other version is that he was gallant and noble, 
tender, chivalrous and very young. All agree 
that, when two days' journey toward Palmyra 
they were attacked by a wandering horde of 
Ishmaelites, the youth was intrepid and wary, 
and after a sharp skirmish, brought off his 
charge, camels, mules, baggage, princess, maid, 
dog, safely within the gates of Damascus. 



358 



Along the Bosfihorus. 



Here is the testimonial made by Lady Ellen's 
own fair hand, in the grimy, well-thumbed reg- 
ister of the Hotel d'Etranger, dated at Damas- 
cus, June 13, 1853. You need not waste valua- 
ble time hunting for the record. Years and 
years ago the leaf went to the portion of weeds 
and worn-out faces : " Jeprends cette occasion de 
recommender le Scheik Antar, chef des Anazzees, 
d tout voyageur que desire mtreprendre le voyage 
de Palmy re; V ay ant trouve parf aitemerd capable, 
et digne de confiance, sous tous les rapports." 

Undoubtedly this electric woman, whose study 
was to attract,, by resistless force, ever}' person 
who came within her orbit, had qualities which 
fire the Arab imagination, and Sheikh Antar 
very naturally fell in love with the unveiled 
Giaour. He lingered in and about Damascus, 
haunting its environs, and became a visitor to 
the grand dame whom he had rescued. In the 
lofty salon, entrancing with vivid lights, languid 
perfumes, dreamy narcotics, waltz-music, and the 
indescribable elegance of perfect taste and wealth, 
the son of the Desert met — his destiny. He was 
welcome, as all were, to that open house ; and in 
the sultry, balmy eves, after the day's burning 
glow, he went mooning about under the citron 
trees, we may fancy, trying to get his own con- 
sent to make an audacious move, which, would 
shock even the meanest of his tribe. Finally 
he proposed to divorce his Moslem wives and 
marry Lady Ellen; to give up many in order to 
become the husband of one; to pass one-half 
the year in Damascus for her pleasure, and one- 



One Woman: A True Romance, 359 

half with his tribe for his, in order still to live 
his natural life, according to his religion and tra- 
ditions. That is the prettiest version, and not 
improbable. Grievous is it to write the other, 
because I have a sort of liking for this soft, tame 
leopardess, full of tiger-blood. I hesitate to re- 
peat the truth ; but stern are the duties of the 
historian. 

After her safe home-coming, one day she as- 
tounded Sheik Antar by telling him she wished 
to become his wife. He was scared, so the 
legend runs, and fled to his defenses — the Desert 
and the bosom of his tribe, whose range was on 
the ancient plain of the Sun -god. The Queen 
was imperative, and not used to denial or oppo- 
sition. She did not pursue him with dainty 
three -cornered notes, perfumed with strange 
odors, and dispatched by trusty hands. She 
sent beguiling embassies, under strict orders, who 
persuaded him to return : and he consented. 

When a Moslem woman marries a Giaour, or 
Christian, it is the duty of the Faithful to track 
her, catch her, make an example of her apostasy. 
She is " caused to disappear." With a man the 
authorities interfere to prevent, if possible, such 
an outrage on Mohammedan religion. The 
Turkish Governor at Damascus took the matter 
in hand, and made the breach of faith such a 
heinous crime before Sheik Antar that again 
the chief, in affright, took to the sands and dis- 
appeared. Again the lady sent for him ; but he 
came "not. He did not fancy stifling airs in city 
walls, still less the threats of the Turkish Serail. 



36o 



Along the Bosfihorus. 



At last she sought him herself, and — Oh ! dear, 
dear! — proposed to marry him. We may well 
ask, with Brabantio, " What foul charms, what 
drugs, what conjuration, and what mighty magic 
had he to cast such a spell over the daughter of 
an alien race? " Antar had been a silent visitor 
in the Palace. Xo feats of broil or battle had 
he to boast, nor tales of rash adventure, moving 
accidents by flood or field : a plain man at his 
best, yet able to bind her in chains of subtle 
sorcery. Or did some malicious elf touch with 
a love-philter the veined eyelids of this Queen, 
so she exclaimed "Thou art wise as thou art 
beautiful!" and followed the monster to stick 
musk-roses in his sleek, smooth head? 

It would be grotesque, if it were not painful ; 
and there is no solution for the killing mystery. 

In his black tent, with his small tribe, she 
found the little man, and (sorry to relate !) there 
they were married by the Bedouin ceremony, 
with no witnesses but his Anazee companions. 
Xo matter how the offer was made, certain it is 
the marriage was consummated in that place and 
way. Under the ever- burning stars she vowed 
her vow and sealed her kismet. 

A friend who knew her well, one of her coun- 
trywomen at Alexandria, wrote me: "Lady 
Ellen's romantic desire of becoming Queen of 
the Desert did not greatly startle us who are 
used to her eccentric fancies. In spite of deter- 
mined opposition, and the protest of the British 
Consul, she was married by Moslem law, and her 
name changed to Madame Antar, wife of the 



One Woman: A True Romance. 361 

Sheik of the Anazees. Too late, too late, she 
learned, and was aghast with horror, to know, 
that, by the act, she had lost her nationality, and 
had become a Turkish subject. She gave the 
world for love, and thought it well lost. Verily, 
there is no mystery like the human heart ; or is 
it true that the days of witchcraft are not 
ended? " 

After it was over and the fact established that 
she was the Bedouin chieftainess, the infatuated 
lady appeared, like Desdemona, subdued unto 
the very quality of her lord. Bepent? Not 
she. No ! No ! No ! She made over to him her 
palace and gardens at Damascus, being there 
part of the year, and in his tent the rest of the 
time. For one of the conditions exacted when 
he yielded to her suit (!) was a written contract 
that she should never require him to go west of 
the City of Delight. 

Yes, she, the high-born, the all-gifted, crowned 
by the Graces with garlands to make life lovely, 
stooped from her place to become the lawful 
wife of the head of a wretched tribe of wanderers 
in the Desert. Among old letters, which furnish 
material for this strange, eventful history, I copy 
one which has survived much that is more 
valuable, written by the wife of a British Consul 
— an answer to the question was not la reineaux 
beaux yeux bleus acting under some unrecognized 
form of insanity : 

— " the malady which slays 
More than are numbered in the lists of Fate, 
Taking all shapes, and hearing many names." 



362 Along the Bosfihorus. 



She wrote : " Lady Ellen's head was clear and 
cool, and her personal charm beyond compare. 
Even at forty she was more attractive than half 
the young girls of her time. We thought that, 
when the delusion died and the wizard spell 
dissolved, she would behold in Antar a creature 
even more repulsive than the one the Queen of 
the Fairies chased through Athenian groves ; 
but she did not tire of her bargain, though 
formerly fickle in attachments. The halo of a 
dream — if dream there be in this waking exist- 
ence — was round him to the last, and she never 
woke from the marvelous illusion. There was 
no masque or claptrap in the conduct of the 
Sheikh, and if there was deceit, she but prac- 
ticed it on herself ; if repulsion, we never found 
it out." 

Unchangeable is custom in the East, binding 
as the sternest decrees of the Kaliph. The 
Mohammedan passionately cherishes the legends 
and traditions of the fathers, and admits no inno- 
vation. I have said the marriage was according 
to the laws of Islam, which ceremony is, to say 
the least, extremely simple, consisting of a 
written contract, if the bride has a dower of 
palm-trees, camels, or a donkey, and a fe^v words 
spoken by the woman, equivalent to I take thee, 
or wed thee, or give myself up to thee. 

When they were absent in Palmyra, the 
show-rooms of the pretty house in Damascus 
were exhibited by the French maid, who talked 
volubly of Madame Antar's habits since her last 
marriage, and showed how she sat on the floor, 



One Woman: A True Romance. 363 



opposite her Arab, and how they ate from the 
same platter. She paraded — not without Miladi's 
consent, of course — the sad souvenirs of her early 
life, reminiscences of the sinless girlhood and 
triumphal career in society at the Court of St. 
James. 

The feminine reader, who has graciously fol- 
lowed my rambling story, now nearing its end, 
may ask, " How did Lady Ellen live out there in 
the Desert?" The tone of society in Oriental 
cities is French ; but the most ingenious and 
versatile cannot carry that tone into the " houses 
of hair," which, from the beginning, have been 
the shelter of the nomads. 

The Arab tent is not like our Sibley or Ehodes 
tent. It is made exactly as it was in the time 
of Abraham, of goat's hair-cloth, brown, and, in 
the distance of the shimmering plain, looks black. 
Thus the poet-king of the Israelites sang : " I 
am black, but comely, O ye daughters of 
Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains 
of Solomon." It is shaped like a parallelogram, 
the door at one of the long sides. The cloth is 
water-proof, and the dark color absorbs the sun's 
rays, making them much cooler than the glaring- 
white tents of civilization. The cloth is raised 
to a considerable height above the ground, with a 
loose, flapping drapery below, to allow free cir- 
culation of air. The interior is divided by a 
curtain, the harem, or woman's apartment, being 
on the right. Cushioned divans, rugs and shawls 
make seats by day and beds by night. Mats are 
there, and the consecrated prayer carpet. After 



364 Along the Bosphorus. 

all, not so bad a lodge in a vast wilderness, in 
which to sing, " I am my Beloved's, and he is 
mine." 

The scriptural narrative of Abraham, Friend 
of Allah, sitting in the tent-door to catch the 
breeze in the heat of the day, and hastening to 
invite the passing stranger, still has its counter- 
part in the Plain of Mamre. Still do men, rich 
in cattle, sit in the tent, a refuge from noonday 
sun, and run to meet the stranger. (Few angels 
pass that way, now.) They salute him, and 
offer him the hospitality of the shade, water to 
wash his feet, and a hasty meal. The wife 
kneads the cakes in the same kneading-trough 
that the Israelites used, and bakes them on the 
hearth on hot stones ; and the calf, " tender and 
good," dressed with butter and milk, is a dish 
fit to set before the king. The scorching sun 
makes haste as urgent, and the Bedouin is ready 
now, as he was three thousand years ago, to 
stand in the shade of the tree and wait on the 
visitor as he eats. 

The tent of the ancient Friend of Guests, as 
the Arab names the first patriarch, was probably 
under a great oak; and one of the descendants 
of that ancient forest king cast the acorn which 
lies on the table where I write. While the 
host attended his angelic visitants, in accorc^ 
with universal Oriental custom, Sarah , though 
invisible, was close by, peeping through the 
tent-curtain and overhearing what was said. So 
the women hide, and catch furtive glimpses from 



One Woman: A True Romance. 365 

behind draperies, and laugh if there is any ab- 
surdity in speech or manner of the stranger. 

The visitor washes his hands, exclaiming, 
Bismillah ! (" in the name of God"), and repeats 
one of the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah. 
A piece of bread is dipped in salt as a pledge for 
unbroken hospitality, and used as a zpooxi to 
scoop up meat and vegetables, if such be the 
feast; and, lastly, the spoon itself is eaten. 
The wife waits on her husband, calling him 
lord, even as Sarah did Abraham ; pnd he eats 
alone, or with his eldest son, and the women 
have their meals by themselves. Hands are 
washed again at the er:d cf the repast ; but dish- 
washing is dispensed T/ith in the dry and thirsty 
land, and so cle^a is Desert sand that rubbing 
the brass platter? with it polishes them brightly. 

Theie was a concession to civilization in the 
Arab Antar when he and his Queen sat on cush- 
ions, beside a tray of food placed on a table 
about eighteen inches high ; presumably, the 
pilce de resistance was pilaff a dreadful mixture 
of rice and stewed meats, and after the banquet 
they had pipes and coffee. Lady Ellen sup- 
pressed the flute-like music of her voice, and 
probably ate in solemn silence, beloved of the 
Oriental. On the most ancient of Arabic houses 
is inscribed, as a text, our familiar proverb : 
" Speech is silver, silence is golden." 

Thus la reine aux yeux bleus lived in camp — 
she, the peerless, the adorable daughter of 
Britain, called by her subjects the " Northern 
Panther," because of her tender grace and leon- 



3 66 



Along the Bosphorus. 



ine courage \ for she was brave as the soldier 
who lives but to die. What was her compensa- 
tion ? If Damascus was monotonous, the Desert 
was weariness intensified. The great sand-levels 
are solemn as the sea. Was its stillness haunted 
bj bitter memories, thoughts of better days in 
other years ? It would seem her vision was not 
retrospective, and the free life of untrammeled 
roving seemed to suit her restless spirit. 

Among a degraded people there was small 
opportunity for using the power which goes 
with the fair and gracious gifts her good genius 
laid in her cradle. The nomadic instinct, born 
of every descendant of Adam, once wakened, 
never sleeps again. It is old as the first wan- 
derers from Eden, and there is no credible tes- 
timony to show distaste of Lady Ellen's marvel- 
ous choice. She was loyal and loving, and 
abided by him till the fever called living was 
past. 

A letter from an English woman at Jaffa, an- 
nounces in the London newspapers the death of 
the chieftainess Antar: " For fifteen years she 
lived as she died, the faithful and affectionate 
wife of the Sheik, to whom she was devotedly 
attached. Half the year was spent by the 
couple in a pretty house in Damascus, just 
within the gates of the city, and the other half 
was spent according to Ms nature in the Desert 
among the Bedouin tents of the tribe. In spite 
of this hard life, necessitated by accommodating 
herself to his habits — for they were never apart 
— she never lost anything of the English lady, 



One Woman: A True Romance. 367 

nor the softness of a woman. She kept her hus- 
band's respect, and was mother and queen of his 
tribe; the natives flocked around her with affec- 
tion and friendship. To the last she was fresh 
and young, brave, refined, and delicate. In the 
Desert stillness to-night the singers are singing 
to the low beat of the cymbal and the mournful 
two-stringed guitar their hymn of the Chief- 
queen, whose hair was of amber, whose eye was 
like Sirius, when the Nile begins to swell. She 
wore a wonderful belt of burning jewels, and 
gave much gold with her white-rose hands, and 
was worshiped by the tribe Anazee. Her grave 
is a beautiful shrine. Though a Giaour, her 
soul is at rest with the blest on green pillows by 
the Happy Eiver, where the great light shines 
from the Throne. The river is wide, like the 
wideness of the sea. It is sweeter than honey, 
whiter than milk, cooler than snow, smoother 
than cream. Its banks are of chrysolites, and 
they who drink of it shall never thirst again. 
In a shady pavilion of rosy-veined marble, pil- 
lared with silver and pearl, and ceiled vermilion 
and blue, she is waiting, waiting for Antar, in 
the Golden Pleasure Fields kept for the Faith- 
ful." 

Under the palms, one summer night (O happy 
night !) I heard the low, slow song of an Anazee, 
and from his strings of rhymes gathered the 
few tender threads woven into this Trm Ho- 
mance. 



IN THE HAREM. 



Slavery is nominally abolished in the Otto- 
man empire, but it is said — I know not how 
truly — that 10,000 slaves are annually bought, 
the larger portion women who become inmates 
of Turkish harems; and this mingling with the 
fairest race has subdued the original ugliriess of 
th ;ar. 

ire are boundless possibilities in their ex* 
c ;e of circumstance. Each may become an 
odalisque, the mother of princes, even a Sultana. 
For, by the strange code of the Moslem, the Sul- 
tan must marry a slave, one who has been 
bought and sold, and the lowest on whom he 
casts a passing look has hope of such high des- 
tiny. The Turk can have four lawful wives, 
though few have more than one. We copy 
Father Jacob, they plead, and if you hint at for- 
bidden numbers, we are like Solomon, the wise, 
and Jacob, his father. No Oriental woman 
makes secret her wish to marry, any more than 
the widow of Moab in the barley-fields among 
the gleaners at Bethlehem, and her prayer is yet 
the prayer of Eachael — "Give me children, else I 
die." 

With this underflow of feeling, Caucasian 
women willingly leave their wretched homes 
(368) 



In the Harem. 



369 



and, when ships touch at the coasts, come to the 
travelers and implore them to carry them away 
as servants. They have seen their brothers — 
handsome and fearless as leopards — marched oft' 
to service in foreign armies. Their costume of 
Persian embroideries, belted with silken girdles; 
their sharp sci meters, enameled with gold, daz- 
zling the sight. The women long to follow and 
tempt fate in the city which they have heard 
lies like a bird afloat on the waters of the 
Golden Horn. Those young girls have little 
tenderness to remember. In one garment they 
have herded sheep and carried water jars on 
braised shoulders in the fierce sun heat of the 
summer; and rolled in skins, on the mud floor 
of a smoky den, they have shivered in the bit- 
ing winds blowing across glaciers which never 
melt. They do not sigh for freedom; they have 
had freedom in their own native hills; they 
want to thrust their bare feet into velvet slippers 
spangled with gold, and loll on soft divans in 
rooms lined with bright marbles. 

The trade is carried on by Jews and is a 
necessary part of polygamy. The slaves enter 
better conditions than they leave, are usually 
kindly treated and by law are free at the end of 
seven years. The whole system is patriarchal, 
and was ancient before the coming of the Father 
of the Faithful. Contracts for marriage are 
oftenest made by the mother of the bride, who 
sometimes does not see her fiance till she is 
robed for the ceremony; and okLjpaids are un- 
H 



37° 



Along the Bosfihorus. 



known in the empire where maids are marriage* 
able at sixteen or younger. 

Wedding festivities sometimes last a whole 
week. The men, in their rooms, smoke sol- 
emnly and sip coffee. M Laughter," says their 
proverb, " is for women and children." And 
merrily laughter rings through the screened 
doors before the apartments of the women. Their 
gaiety overflows in jests and playful tricks, triv- 
ial and meaningless to us, but delightful to them. 
Charms are practiced, fortunes foretold and 
dreams, in which they have childlike faith, are 
related. Sometimes a marriage is delayed on 
account of a bad omen or unlucky dream. 

The presents of the wealthy are jewels, furs, 
and embroideries, shawls from the goats of 
Thibet, silks of Indian dyes, rich as coronation 
robes, scarfs of Mecca, woven of pure, white silk 
shot with silver. The larger garments are 
strung on cords stretched against the walls of 
the bridal chamber. A wreath of artificial 
flowers borders its ceiling and the draperies 
below make a vari-colored lining, gay as the 
shawl-lined tent of Haroun Al Easchid. All is 
arranged with the unerring eye for color which 
distinguishes the Oriental, and the work goes on 
with intervals of feasting; eating sugar-plums, 
and wild fantastic music, at once harsh and sor- 
rowful. The bride is radiant in white or rose 
pink, wrought with gold ; her nails and finger 
tips are dyed with henna, and an amulet of cor- 
nelian, inscribed with a verse from the Koran ? is 



In the ttareni* 



liung round her neck — a defense against the evil 
eye. 

When the hour comes for the betrothed 
strangers to see each other face to face for the 
first time, her best friend kisses the bride be- 
tween the eyebrows, removes her veil and 
spreads it on the floor. The bridegroom kneels 
upon it and offers the touching prayer appointed 
by Lord Mohammed, regarded as the most ac- 
ceptable that can be addressed to the Deity on 
this occasion. 

The word harem means " the Holy or Sancti- 
fied,' 7 and in general sense is given to any spot 
peculiarly hallowed. I was a long while learn- 
ing that the name applies to the spacious en- 
closed court about mosques ; not a barred 
prison, but consecrated ground, revered as a 
sanctuary, However blank and bare the re- 
mainder of the house may be — and usually is — 
the forbidden rooms are well furnished accord- 
ing to Moslem fancy, in which is copied, nearly 
as possible, their ideal Paradise ; an adorable 
palace with a thousand windows, and before 
every window a sparkling fountain. Free light, 
abundant space, shady gardens, where the night- 
ingale sings among the roses, and rushing waters 
cool the air. These are the luxuries dearest to 
the Oriental. The women, old and young, as- 
semble in the sacred rooms with their children 
and attendants, and they are the center of the 
world to the home-keeping Turk, who cares 
nothing for travel and never emigrates. His 
spare time and money are spent there, and the 



372 Along the Bosfihorus. 



wife is in the tender Arabian phrase, " the 
keeper of her husband's soul." 

Turkish houses are much alike. The en- 
trance is through a double door large enough for 
horses and carriage. Beyond it is a swing- 
screen suspended like a gate, and hides the ves- 
tibule, or court, when the street door opens. 
Two outside staircases appear, one leading to 
the men's apartments, tn^ ^ther to the women's. 
At the first landing the visitor finds the black 
Aga on guard before the door, lo which only 
one man is admitted, and which is lorb'dden to 
the sight and thought of all men save that oi;e. 

There is no special place to eat or sleep in. 
A low divan running round the wall of each 
room is made a bed by night, the clothes being 
kept in presses by day. In imperial palaces the 
coverlets are of Lahore stuffs embroidered with 
colored silks interwoven with pearls and tur- 
quoises, the sheets are of fine cotton, barred with 
stripes of silk like satin ribbon. The pillows have 
silk and gold covers, and during summer, mosquito 
nets of Tripoli gauze, spotted with gold, are sus- 
pended by gilt hoops over the sleeper. Noth- 
ing gayer or daintier can be imagined. For- 
merly cashmere shawls served as " spreads " for 
the beds of the rich. The small round mirror, 
rYamed in velvet, is always at hand for toilet 
use, and the laying on of cosmetics is so deep 
that it is named " face-writing." Turkish 
women understand the arts of repairing the rav- 
ages of time, and their toilet service is varied 
and effective. Meals are served on bright brass 



In the Hareni. 



373 



trays of various sizes, and a piece of bread serves 
as spoon, knife and fork, so deftly used that 
there is neither spilling nor crumbling about the 
low table, beside which cushions are ranged 
instead of chairs. Exquisite neatness prevails 
and many attendants are in waiting. 

Every Turkish harem has its bath-rooms, 
three in number, if the owner is well to do. 
The first is square^ chiefly of marble, (in the 
Sultan's palace of Egyptian alabaster), lighted 
from a glass dome. A large reservoir, built 
against the outer wall, with an opening into the 
bath, contains the water, half of which is heated 
by a furnace below it. Hot air pipes throw 
intense heat into the room, fountains lead the 
water from the reservoir and here the rubbing 
process is conducted. The second room is less 
and furnished only with a marble platform hold- 
ing mattresses and cushions, where the bathers 
repose after the fatigue of ablutions too many 
for description. Here they smoke cigarettes, eat 
fruits and sweets, and finally wrap themselves in 
soft burnouses, and pass to the outer chamber 
where they drowse and doze on downy couches 
till they recover from the steaming heat anc 1 the 
languor that follows a long warm bath. Besides 
these, there are public baths where women 
spend many hours in gossip and the passive en- 
joyment of being thoroughly rubbed, brushed, 
combed and perfumed. 

I once met a famous lady, bought with a great 
price by a high official of Stamboul. She was 
a Georgian, I think, with hair of reddish gold — 



374 



Along the Bosphorus. 



the sun-bright tresses of Medea — ivory white 
skin, eyes black as death — the antelope eyes of 
the poets. The faintest line of antimony drawn 
on the lids at the root of the long lashes added 
to their luster and the witchery of her glance. 
She wore the yashmak, and as only ladies were 
present I begged her to remove it, so I might 
see her unveiled loveliness. She complied 
without affectation of timidity or blushing and 
returned my gaze with smiling serenity, too 
well used to open admiration for embarrassment. 
I cannot recall her name ; it was something 
which, being interpreted, might mean Tulip 
Cheek. A riveriere of pearls lay on her neck — 
snow on snow — and the exquisite mouth was a 
very Cupid's bow. My princess must have been 
a peerless maiden ten years before, now, unhap- 
pily, growing stout, as Eastern women usually 
do: the result of luxurious living and much 
eating of sweets. Her manner was soft and 
gracious, her aspect the repose of supreme con- 
tent. 

Ladies of rank are now struggling into the 
miseries of French toilet, but the old Turkish 
dress is much prettier. A loose, flowing robe 
of silk or crepe wrought with gold and silks, 
without belt or tightness to limit its comfort. 
Nothing better adapted to their climate can be 
imagined. The white veil, prescribed by law, 
without which no one may appear in street or 
presence of man, is thin gauze, folded bias and 
placed over the head, coming down near the 
eyebrows. A larger piece covers the lower half 



In the Harem. 



375 



of the face and is secured to the back hair by 
jeweled pins. It makes a light, pretty turban 
which is a merciful charity to the homely, and 
enhances the grace of the graceful ; not hiding the 
Paradise eyes — ah, those eyes! Well may the 
minstrels liken their liquid splendor to the reflec- 
tion of midnight stars at the bottom of a well. 
And the veils grow thinner and thinner in spite 
of firmans, issued by the sultan and read in all 
the mosques, calling attention of heads of fami- 
lies to this back-sliding and violation of the law 
of the prophet. 

Often have I been asked how do Constanti- 
nople ladies employ themselves. Like others 
who love leisure, in visiting, promenading, dress 
and shopping. Their chief joy is to float in a 
caique to the valley of Sweet Waters. On Fri- 
day — the Mohammedan Sunday — hundreds glide 
by, dressed in brilliant color, mist-like veils 
faintly shading their faces. The rowers wear 
jackets of scarlet, stiff with shining broidery, 
an armed slave is on duty clad in barbaric stuffs, 
Cushions of eider-down, crimson hangings touch- 
ing the blue water make the enchanting picture. 
O, how its beauty comes back to me now ! 

Their talk with each other is of their chil- 
dren, the changes and intrigues of the palace, 
and of dress. The Turkish woman does not 
know the word responsibility. She has undis- 
puted control of her property and time, is able 
to take her own part, and by finesse and perse- 
verance manages to have her own way. 

Speaking through an interpreter dulls the 



376 Along the Bosfihorus. 



edge of conversation and the merest trifles suf- 
fice. Yet on thinking over our talk it does not 
seem greatly inferior to the average morning 
visit in the land we love to call our own. The 
seclusion of the harem gives much time for dis- 
cussion and many a question of grave import is 
there debated. The women are well informed 
in politics, fond of intrigue, and so artful that 
our missionary, Dr. Dwight, of Constantinople, 
writes: "Any one who has a private scheme to 
advance, a policy to develop, an office to gain or 
to keep, a boy to provide for, or an enemy to 
crush, sends his wife to the harem of a grandee. 
Women here bring about the most astounding 
results." 

Their manner is ceremonious during formal 
calls, and they still kiss the hem of the garment 
in deference to age or superior. In familiar 
places, they have a sweet frankness, like un- 
trained young girls, and listen with interest to 
accounts of our ways of living, how we keep 
house, do great charities, manage the churches, 
etc., etc. "How hard/' they say in tender pity; 
"that life may be good for you but would not be 
good at all for us. You are made for work, we 
are made for love ; this suits us best." So they 
lean back on the silky cushions, taste the con- 
serve of rose and of quince, light their cigarettes 
and are happy. 



WEDDING CUSTOMS IN THE EAST. 



The house rests not on the earth, but on the wife.— Oriental 
Proverb. 

Among Oriental nations of unmixed blood, 
marriage ceremonies are almost the same as in 
patriarchal days. Negotiations are begun by 
parents or near relatives of the bridegroom and 
the bride, who have no voice in the matter. 
Settlements, all preliminaries, are conducted by 
guardians of those we call the high contracting 
parties ; and love must come, if it come at all, 
after marriage. Compensation to the parents, 
for the loss of a daughter, is made. Still do 
Uncle Labans drive sharp bargains with those 
who must work for a wife, and practice deceits 
disappointing as that one revealed in the sorry 
morning when Jacob awoke and behold it was 
Leah. After betrothal there is an exchange of 
presents; from the beginning a sign of loyalty. 
The reader remembers how Abraham's servant 
sought a wife for Isaac, and, not content with 
giving her a golden ear-ring of half a shekel 
weight, and bracelets of ten shekels' weight of 
gold, he enriched her family with jewels of sil- 
ver and jewels of gold, raiment, and precious 
things. 

Sometimes a bride's whole fortune is in her 
trinkets— an inalienable dowry. One Sunday, 
while returning to Jerusalem from the Mount of 

(377) 



378 



Along the Bosfthoms. 



Olives, by way of the King's Dale, we followed 
the dry bed of the Kedron to wheie the waters 
of Siloa go softly, now, as in the age of mira- 
cles, an intermittent fountain. A Syrian woman 
was drawing water in an earthen jar. Dressed 
in the poor cotton gown of the peasant of Judea, 
it was surprising to see a chain of valuable coin 
pendant across her forehead, and white metal 
bracelets, heavy almost as horseshoes, and not 
unlike them in appearance, on her wrists. 
Thinking to secure a souvenir of the day the 
interpreter asked the price of her jewelries. 
She named a sum ridiculously high, at which I 
shook my head, and inquired if nothing less 
would do. She smiled, showing; teeth like hail- 
stones, and said in Arabic, " They are my mar- 
riage portion; the Frankish lady has not money 
enough to buy them." 

In districts remote from cities, where ancient 
customs rule, the Jewish ceremonies are length- 
ened with a disregard of time not known to the 
restless sons of Japhet. The festival may last 
seven, ten, fifteen days, and, in comparison, any 
merry-making in our domestic life is tame and 
dull. Distant friends come with their families, 
the ox and the fatling are killed, hundreds are 
bidden to a mighty feast, and the rich man dis- 
tributes wedding garments to those not able to 
buy. 

Before the happy hour when the bridal pair 
may sing " I am my beloved's, and he is mine," 
there are protracted shows, games, jugglery, 
rope-walking, and strange pastimes unknown to 



Wedding Customs in the East. 



379 



us. The last day the bride, with her attendants, 
goes to the bath. Her nails are stained " like 
branches of coral" with henna, a powder made 
of leaves of camphire dried and pounded. Her 
eyelids are blackened with a line line of anti- 
mony; and, while her maidens lay on thick 
cosmetics, red and white, she surveys herself in 
a small round mirror. She uses a perfume of 
ambergris and musk-paste called seraglio pas- 
tilles, and chews a white gum named mastic to 
sweeten her breath. Her dress is rose-pink 
embroidered with gold thread, and over the 
many plaited dark hair is thrown a gauzy veil 
which makes the air balmy with heavy odors. 
Then come plaintive songs, farewells full of 
tears, and the final benediction given to Rebe- 
kah, " Be thou the mother of millions." 

Meanwhile the bridegroom, with his com- 
rades, has spent the morning in the bath, where 
he is anointed with oil, scented with myrrh, and 
robed in vestments, purple and scarlet, costly as 
his purse will bear. Says the Oriental lover, 
" In the night, the jealous night which drops a 
veil over all else, we lift the bridal veil." When 
the midnight stars arise, he marches away in 
gay and noisy procession to a swell of drums and 
sounding pipes and cornets. There are flaring 
torches, waving scarfs, flowery garlands on horse 
and rider, dances, songs; and the rabble of the 
street — always a ready ooncourse— are free to 
join the wedding march and add wild shouts to 
the revelry. 

Yirgin's lamps are little terra-cotta things 



3 8o 



Along the Bosphorus. 



made to hold about a half-pint of oil, and are 
found ia profusion about ruined cities of Judea. 
They should be trimmed and ready for use when 
the procession comes ; but after two weeks of 
continuous festivity it is not strange that some 
of the bride-maidens forget to fill their lamps. 
In fact, the wedding-guests are pretty well worn 
out at the last hour, and drop to sleep — the chil- 
dren on the floor, the bride in her appointed 
corner, the visitors on divans and cushions. 
Finally, the watcher on duty — usually an elderly 
matron — hears the sound of advancing music, 
lute, cornet, and cymbal. She rouses the sleep- 
ers. The bride adjusts her dress, (can the maid 
forget her ornaments or the bride her attire ?) 
and, at midnight, the joyful shout resounds. 
" Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to 
meet him." There is a sudden start for lights, 
and ranging in line to receive him. When he 
passes in with his train, the door is bolted 
against the throng of the street, eager to crowd 
the house, and rob, if possible. In the parable, 
mixed with the mob were foolish virgins who 
started at the last minute to buy oil, finding they 
could not beg of the w^ise. Too late for expla- 
nation. Naturally, the bridegroom supposed 
their loud knocking was the clamor of the mul- 
titude, and called out, " Verily I say unto you, I 
know you not." 

It is told that the janissaries of the Turkish 
army once broke into a house, and, not satisfied 
with stealing the wedding presents, carried off 
the bride herself, and held her, in honor and 



Wedding Customs in the East. 381 

safety, till a heavy ransom was paid for her re- 
lease. 

Autre pays, autres rnoeurs. The Turkish wed- 
ding is on Monday, and among the poor the cere- 
mony is merely the sentence, spoken by the 
woman, "I give myself up to thee," and there 
need be no witnesses. The ceremonials of the 
well-to-do are so long and elaborate, space for- 
bids a description here. Divorce is equally easy. 
The Mohammedan can put away his wife at 
pleasure, and without cause, by simply saying, 
u I divorce thee ; " but he must pay her dowry 
— which law is the check on the husband's ca- 
price and tyranny. 

With Circassians and tribes of the Caucasus 
we call heathen, after a bargain is made with 
the parents, the bridegroom carries off the 
daughter, a willing captive ; and the bride is at 
home in a wretched hut, soon as a few incanta- 
tions against evil spirits are practiced. 

The prettiest wedding procession I have seen 
was in Constantinople — a stately and rejoicing 
march, though without music. Fancy a narrow 
street of high stone houses with projecting bal- 
conies, latticed with slats so close together that 
persons within can see without being seen. A 
long line of sedan chairs, cushioned and cur- 
tained with satin, each borne by two men hold- 
ing poles, and keeping step together like trained 
horses; their uniform braided jackets, baggy 
trowsers, and scarlet fez made festal by a bunch 
of lilacs on the bosom — for it was rejoicing 



382 



Along the Bosfihorus. 



Spring, and the gardens of the Bosphorus were 
radiant with color and bloom. 

At the head of the column, an armed attend- 
ant, in gorgeous costume, with whip in hand, 
cleared away dogs and gaping idlers. They 
were en route for the Greek Church outside Pera, 
and the beauty of the beautiful race was on the 
bride. The shining face at the window was like 
some lovely human flower, too tender for expos- 
ure, blossoming under glass. On the classic 
head a wreath of orange- flowers, to be laid away 
on the morrow, and carefully kept for her burial. 

As they near the church-door, a bridal chorus 
rules the slow steps of the carriers ; and when 
the bride, lovely as a lily all white and gold, 
steps from the silken seat, bonbons are showered 
on her by waiting friends. The bridegroom, 
also crowned with a wreath, joins her ; and they 
stand with clasped hands at the altar while the 
long ritual is read by the priest. Three times 
the wreaths are interchanged by the priest, in 
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
Three times the pair are led by him round the 
altar; a glass of consecrated wine is offered first 
to the bridegroom, then to the bride, afterward 
to the best man and first bridesmaid, whose duty 
it is to be godfather and godmother to the chil- 
dren. The ceremony ends with kisses^ congratu- 
lations, and leave-takings, much the same as in 
our own country. 



AT YILDIZ PALACE, 



Through four hundred years the Turkish 
house-royal has had unbroken lineal male de- 
scent without a lateral branch. At Old Seraglio 
Point thirty successive Sultans held their sumpt- 
uous state till about forty years ago, when the 
chain of palaces bordering the Marmora was 
burned, and the court was removed to Yildiz, on 
the heights beyond Pera, 

Beautiful for situation is Yildiz, Palace of the 
Star. Built nobly in a park of many hundred 
acres, it overlooks an amphitheater of stately 
cities with domes, towers, minarets, castles, 
islands, seas, fleets, and in the farness of the dis- 
tance the My si an Olympus — a panorama of vivid 
color and varied movement without a peer on 
the globe. What St. James Palace is to London 
is Yildiz to the Turk — the center of interest in 
Constantinople, the well-guarded, " the enchant- 
ress of many lovers." . 

Barracks have been added till it is in reality a 
citadel, and there beats the heart and plots the 
brain of Islam. Within the walled enclosure 
are kiosks of marble and gold, outbuildings, 
stables, a military camp and parade-grounds, 
cypress groves, unshorn forests, gardens with 
every kind of singing bird; a miniature city 
with the delights of the country as well — a for* 
tress and a sanctuary. The least attempt of an 



(383) 




384 Along the Bosphorus. 



unauthorized person to enter the buildings ap- 
propriated to men is punishable by death. It 
would come as a lightning stroke should any try 
to approach the forbidden rooms into which one 
man enters ; the uncontrolled, irresponsible 
master of hundreds of women. 

Among them are no family distinctions, no 
records, no questions of ancestay, hereditary 
titles or names. All have started from the 
same level, each one has been a slave bought by 
the mother or sisters of the Sultan, educated to 
her position, and presented to him on the third 
day of the Feast of Bairam, "the Night of 
Destiny." Nor are they married to him. The 
Padisha, being above law, cannot submit to 
matrimonial bondage. Since Othman, illustrious 
founder of the empire bearing his name, girded 
on the sword, which is the imperial scepter, but 
two Ottoman Sultans have married. Of the 
mates we call wives only four hold the highest 
rank. All have been chosen for personal charm, 
and are in the bloom of youth ; by far the larger 
number are from Circassia, the ancient Colchis, 
from whose palace gardens Grecian heroes stole 
their brides in the dim centuries before the 
Iliad was written. 

Imagination is bewildered by thoughts of such 
an array of beauties set in palatial splendors. 
They live for one sole purpose — the study of 
pleasing him who has lifted the silvery feet of 
these Daughters of Love from the mire and 
rested them on cushions of rose leaves and eider- 
down. Instead of grinding toil, they enjoy th§ 



At Yildiz Palace. 



385 



sweetness of rest ; one cotton gown is exchanged 
for bright raiment and jewels rare ; for black 
bread and goat's milk, they have suppers for 
Sybarites, honey of orange-flowers, and sherbet 
of violets and sugar. Each odalisque has her 
kiosk, her court, grand officials, boats lined with 
satin, gilded carriages and trained servants shod 
with slippers of silence, who minister to them in 
cool, perfumed chambers. Their career depends 
on their own tact and grace. By these gifts the 
ragged beggar may succeed to the highest rank, 
and compel princesses to kiss the hem of her 
garment. 

One will in the harem is supreme as a Provi- 
dence or a Destiny. To this power, before 
which great and small are but dust, is yielded 
absolute submission. Says Janilla, the Exalted, 
teaching the newly arrived Laleli (Pink Tulip) 
and Benefish (White Violet): "Should the 
Prince at noonday say it is night, declare your 
feet are wet with dew, and that you behold the 
moon and the stars." 

In February a new palace was ordered. In 
June it was completed and furnished, fountains 
playing, cascades dashing, nightingales nesting 
among roses in bloom. We know how the 
Turks furnish. In the Summer-Palace one room 
is hung with pale blue silk, another with 
Broussa satin, tapestries of India and broideries 
of Persia. There are no pictures — they encour- 
age profanity ; no statues — they lead to idolatry. 
The Prophet (he rests in glory ! ) was a hater of 
idols. In the day of judgment pictures and 
25 



386 



Along the Bosphorus. 



statues will rise and flock round the artists whc 
produced them, and call on the unhappy makers 
to supply their creatures with souls. 

Humanity is unchangeable ; the king of a 
hundred kings, the shadow of God upon earth, 
must have his preferences, and naturally the 
reigning favorite makes the most of her brief 
season of command. Doubtless tears, clamors, 
poutings, work the same results in Constantino- 
ple that they do in "Washington, and the luxur- 
ious harem may have some dull corner where 
the discarded favorite may weep neglected while 
her victorious rival sweeps by -in triumph. 

The Turks are tender in the extreme to ani- 
mals and children, and we must believe they are 
also gentle toward women. Sometimes the 
caprices of wives have been costly as the Sultan 
to the Empire. Sultan Ibrahim allowed his to 
take what they pleased from shops and bazars 
without payment. One houri complained she- 
did not like shopping by daylight ; and at once 
the sovereign issued an order requiring mer- 
chants to keep their shops open all night, and to 
have enough torches burning to exhibit goods 
to advantage. Another, whose name means 
Little Bit of Sugar, whispered to Ibrahim that 
she wanted to see him with his beard fringed 
with gems. The Lord of Lords was adorned 
accordingly, and made a spectacle of himself 
thus tricked out. Enormous treasures were 
lavished on a chariot, and, as in the days of 
Solomon, silver was nothing accounted of. But 
these whims are in the records of two hundred 



At Yildiz Palace. 



3^7 



years ago, when the milk-white hand of a queen 
tightened the bow-string for the Grand Vizier, 
the Cadin of two thousand and seven hundred 
shawls reigned over two continents and two seas, 
and the odalisque of a hundred silver carriages 
ruled the imperial Divans. 

A conspicuous person about the palace is the 
Bairam Aga, Keeper of the Maidens, a jet black 
Nubian, probably from the Soudan. He wears 
a gorgeous uniform of scarlet and gold, has the 
air of authority, and on his ample breast dis- 
plays a dozen Imperial, Eoyal and Christian 
orders of which he is knight. He ranks with 
prime ministers and field marshals ; disputes pre- 
cedence with ambassadors, and is courted for his 
influence. A genuine African, he loves jewels, 
and on the hand graciously extended for kisses 
of the Faithful there glitters a ruby second only 
to the one for which Kubla Khan offered a city 
and was refused. From the savings of his in- 
come the Guardian of the Lilies has built a 
mosque for his lordly sepulcher when his term 
of vigilant service is ended. 

The true Oriental is unsurpassed in secrecy, 
and there is a fascination in his silence which 
moves the gossip to insatiate curiosity. The 
foreigner must stop at the carved and gilded 
portal of the consecrated place. Even Bairam 
Aga does not pass it. Ambassadors have peti- 
tioned and princesses sued in vain for entrance 
into the Gate of Felicity. The outside world 
hears not the faintest echo of the strange, adven- 
turous life of women whose loves, hates, spites, 



388 Along the Bosfihorus. 



intrigues, are plays played out with neither 
audience nor spectator to report. If Bairam 
Aga knows more than we do, he makes no sign ; 
he is secret as the grave. 

It is said that harem etiquette was regulated 
ages ago "by laws that change not, and is ob- 
served with rigid exactness and minute obser- 
vance of detail. The mothers of children have 
apartments separate as families in flats, and 
visit with the grave ceremonials by which 
Orientals salute strangers. What jealousies 
may flash in the languishing dark eyes, whose 
witchery has made their fortune, who knows 
may tell. 

At the Bairam feast the rose door of Paradise 
opens, and the ladies of the seraglio take place 
in the long procession of carriages. Their un- 
sunned loveliness is closely veiled, and there is 
something delicate and sweet in that .modest 
veiling, like the consecration implied in the pure 
white bonnet of the nun. Children's faces 
crowd the carriage-windows, heads lovely as 
seraph or cherub crowned with lilies and jas- 
mine. 

Here is a constant recurrence in mind to the 
court of Solomon and the Old Testament women. 
Could we lift the draperies which shadow the 
sanctuary we might find childless women mourn- 
ing over their curse, and young mothers exult- 
ing, like Leah, at the birth of Eeuben, when she 
says : " ISTow, therefore, my husband will love 
me." Yashti and Queen Esther after her may 
enjoy a transient season, but the mother of his 



At Yildiz Palace. 



389 



Sons alone has the lasting affection of the Eastern 
monarch. And this brings us to the second 
person in rank of the Ottoman Empire, the 
mother of the first born prince. When her son 
comes to the throne she has the title Sultana 
Valide (Queen Mother). She enjoys an immense 
income, called slipper-money, a separate court 
and palace, with one hundred and fifty servants. 
When she drives her suit is thirty girls and from 
ten to fifteen black Agas mounted on Arab 
horses. No other lady moves in such pomp. 
When she takes her pleasure on the Bosphorus, 
it is in the imperial caique, the most exquisite 
boat since Cleopatra's barge floated on the 
Cydnus. It is painted pure white, with traceries 
of gold and pink, and under the perfect stroke of 
twelve pairs of oars darts like a winged thing 
across the waves. The rowers, dressed in white 
silk shirts, white trousers, and red fez, make a 
stroke with absolute precision, as one man, every 
thirty seconds. A crimson canopy of velvet, 
bordered with gold, is upheld by four gilt 
columns, and in its shade reclines the Sultana 
Valide on cushions of down and velvet carpets 
fringed with gold. A retinue of five caiques 
filled with maids of honor attend her. They are 
guarded by black slaves, whose duty it is to hold 
umbrellas over the young heads screened by the 
white turbans. The little fleet on the shining 
water is a most picturesque sight. 

The Sultana Valide is the only inmate of the 
royal harem who is privileged to receive visits 
from foreigners. Under a manner of quiet dig- 



39° Along the Bosphorus. 



nity she carries determination which makes 
high officials dread her influence and seek her 
favor. In time of peril and distress she maj 
admit deputations from the army and people ; 
her judgment in affairs is acknowledged, and she 
has been known to plead for her son with elo- 
quence and pathos. At the festival of Bairam, 
celebrated by the departure of pilgrims for Mecca, 
she joins the highest dignitaries and ministers, 
officers civil and martial, in kissing the'hem of 
the Sultan's robe. 

By court etiquette he must stand in her 
presence, sitting at her request ; in return the 
place at his right hand, given by Solomon to his 
mother, is still the reserved seat for the mother 
of the Padisha. The pontoon bridge spanning 
the Golden Horn, crossed daily by one hundred 
thousand men, is called the bridge of the Sultana 
Yalide, and leads to a mosque of the same name. 

Seven female officers preside over the harem- 
lih. Each has her slaves and establishment, and 
may be often seen shopping in the city, attended 
by the Imperial servants. Seven thousand 
persons daily eat the bread and salt of the Grand 
Seignor. My brief space forbids enumeration of 
service or wages. A few items are : three 
hundred cooks, four hundred musicians, two 
hundred men in charge of menageries and 
aviaries, twelve hundred female slaves. Properly 
speaking, there is no civil list, and accurate 
figures are not easily reached. The ladies, veiled 
and attended, visit in their walled gardens and 
palaces, hired musicians play on lutes, and almehs 



At Yildiz Palace. 



391 



dance for their amusement. Donizetti, brother 
of the famous composer, was at one time direc- 
tor-in-chief of the Sultan's music. Story-telling 
is in favor, and a good reciter is in high request. 
Happy the Scherezade who knows the tales of 
the genii and can amuse the Kaliph who has 
gone through all the pleasures described by the 
singing king at Bethlehem : " And whatsoever 
mine e3^es desired I kept not from them; I 
withheld not my heart from any joy." 



1 



